


( in the yellow corpse of october )

by Acacius



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, M/M, Oneshot Prompts Challenge, Post-Season/Series 02, WWC2020, i saw this prompt list on tumblr & got so ridiculously excited, there will be a mix of serious & funny oneshots i'm sure so don't let the poetic title fool u lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 44,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacius/pseuds/Acacius
Summary: An attempt at the 'What We Create in October' WWDITS challenge that's floating around. Each chapter will correspond with a prompt taken from the list.Chapter 31 - Halloween: It has been roughly five years since Nandor and Guillermo became a couple. Nandor has something special planned to commemorate Halloween night.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless, Laszlo Cravensworth/Nadja
Comments: 153
Kudos: 123





	1. Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Familiars come and go. Nandor knows this, has shuffled through hundreds of the same starry-eyed, naive humans for centuries now. He knows how this is supposed to go—the human either leaves or dies. Nandor does not chase after them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote half of this during a zoom meeting at work bc we didn't need our audio/video on, so u could definitely say that the wwdits brain rot is really setting in now i guess! anyway, hope y'all enjoy xoxo

.

.

Familiars come and go. Nandor knows this, has shuffled through hundreds of the same starry-eyed, naive humans for centuries now. He knows how this is supposed to go—the human either leaves or dies. Nandor does not chase after them.

But when Guillermo leaves, it’s different. There is a marrow-deep ache, as if the human were a phantom limb, a part of Nandor that had been ruthlessly amputated in his sleep. For the first few days after Guillermo’s departure, Nandor finds himself looking to his right, to the corner of his periphery that the human had occupied for over a decade. Every joke seemingly falls flat without Guillermo there to laugh with him. His crypt seems emptier, somehow, even though Guillermo rarely slept there with him—but just looking at the chaise lounge now riddled with blood-covered vestments reminds him of how alone and unhappy he truly is. The house quickly falls into disarray and Nandor hardly notices, too focused on the human-shaped absence in his life.

He clenches his hands into fists and wishes the ache would transform into anger. Anger is easy. It spreads like a wildfire, uncontrollable, aching to burn everything it can touch. Grief, however, was not a feeling Nandor was comfortable with. It was the direct antithesis to anger. Instead of consuming others, it only ever consumed you. Grief gnawed at his bones like a ravenous animal, desperate for one more scrap of flesh, one more mouthful of viscera. It could consume him whole if he let it.

He almost wanted it to. (In hindsight, it probably would have.)

One night, Nandor carries the forgotten glitter portrait into his crypt. He briefly thinks of destroying it, letting the portrait catch fire and burn until only ash remained. Rid himself of the only physical reminder of Guillermo left in the house. Instead, he tucks it carefully into the corner of the room, obscured slightly by an overhanging set of drapes, so that his housemates don’t stumble upon it on the rare chance that they darken his door.

He tries not to think about how the portrait may be the last and final keepsake he will ever have of Guillermo.

**

Familiars come and go. Guillermo, however, seemingly has a monopoly on coming and going out of Nandor’s life.

Nandor rarely chased anything—even potential meals. So it is with a frustrated hiss that he tackles Guillermo to the ground when he tries to leave again in the aftermath of the theatre, mini-fridge tucked laboriously in his arms.

The mini-fridge tumbles out of his grasp and careens through the grassy front lawn as Guillermo yelps out, obviously unprepared for an attack.

 _Good,_ Nandor thinks, uncaring of the fact that any of the human neighbors could potentially see them tussling out in the yard, vampire blood still covering Guillermo from head to toe. For as vicious and deadly as Guillermo had been in the theatre, Nandor could still see flickers of the nineteen year old who had come to their door and refused to leave even at the threat of a slow, painful death. Nandor hears the uptick in Guillermo’s heart rate, the blood rushing in a familiarly sweet song as he rolls onto his back and pushes himself up on his elbows, brown eyes narrowed in a tired glare.

“What the _fuck_ was that for?” he near hisses, a crude imitation of how the vampires glowered, teeth gnashing together. Vampire hunter bloodline or not, Guillermo had taken some of their more vampiric behaviors to heart. It’s a realization that stirs a confusing mix of emotions in his gut. Mostly, though, Nandor feels the slimy, insidious hand of guilt squeezing his dead heart.

There was no way that Guillermo could ever return to a normal human life. Even if he didn’t have the blood of Abraham Van Helsing in his veins, he was utterly changed by his time as a familiar. Nandor could wipe his mind, drop him off at a random gas station in Delaware like he did to Benjy, but the vampiric traits would remain like a set of vestigial organs, useless aside from the history they told.

“ _Stop that!”_ Nandor chides in lieu of voicing any of his actual feelings or concerns, still towering over the human. He tries to ignore the amalgamation of vampire hunting equipment that had spilled out of the fridge and onto the lawn. “Only vampires hiss, Guillermo. And you are certainly not a vampire.”

He sees Guillermo’s gaze dart to one of the stakes for a brief moment and knows that he has, once again, stuck his entire foot in his mouth.

“You’re right. I’m not a vampire. I’m something that _kills_ vampires.”

The chill that settles at the base of his spine is so unfamiliar that it nearly makes him want to dissolve into the safety of an incorporeal fog. Every alarm bell in his mind is telling him to run, to get as much distance between himself and the _monster_ covered in vampire viscera, but he stamps the feeling out with a frustrated growl.

“Do you really think I give a shit about that? I just want you to come home!”

“Why?” Guillermo asks, voice still unnaturally cold. “I could kill you, Nandor. Sometimes, I think I even want to.”

Nandor gestures vaguely to the yard, to the crosses and the garlic and the stakes. “You had plenty of chances to do so before tonight, but you didn’t. Instead, you killed other vampires to save us. That is why, hunter or not, you have proven your loyalty to us. To me. So come back. _Please_.”

Guillermo is silent for a long time. Nandor is sure that he will say no, that this will be the final time he sees Guillermo without a stake held between them. He prepares himself for the worst. 

“…I’ll come back. On one condition.”

Nandor sighs, defeated. He knows that at this point he’d give Guillermo almost anything his heart desired. Limitless breaks, multiple bedrooms in the house, fancy dinners delivered to their door—they were all minor inconveniences if it meant that Guillermo would be back at his side, that he would have a heart beat that he could fall asleep to and a warm hand to hold when he disembarked from his coffin every night. 

“Fine. What is it?”

A slow, familiar smile spreads across Guillermo’s lips, the sort of smile that makes Nandor think that maybe, just maybe, they would be alright after all. “I need you to buy me a fridge.”

It is at that exact moment that Shaun decides to make his presence known, waving excitedly at the pair from over the fence. “Hey, Nandor! And, uh, Guillermo, right? You two having a lover’s spat or something? I mean why else would you be throwing out a perfectly good mini-fridge?” His face twists in confusion. “Wait, is that blood on your clothes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) one day i’ll write abt vampire traits that Guillermo has unconsciously adopted in his time as a familiar, but for now here’s a tiny snippet of it 
> 
> 2) absolutely in love w/ the galaxy brain idea of shaun mistaking nandor & guillermo as the other married couple in the house... shaun may be a dick but he’s not a homophobe bc there’s no way laszlo would be friends w/ him otherwise 
> 
> 3) gonna try & participate every day, but no promises ^^; i’ll be aiming for all chapters to be btwn 500-1.5k words.
> 
> also p.s. my tumblr is @nandoor if ur looking for the prompt list; i've reblogged it there so it should come up if u search 'wwcits' :)


	2. Superb Owl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, it's the vampires turn to host the Superb Owl party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wrote this while nursing a migraine, so apologies if any (or all) of the humor falls flat. i just wanted to get this out before the night ended ;v; hope y'all enjoy!

.

.

This time, it’s the vampires who host the _Superb Owl_ party for Shaun and his lazy sack-of-potato friends.

Colin Robinson purposefully fiddles with the remote, all too excited to ramble nasally about last year’s commercials as everyone settles into the parlor room. The 50” flat screen TV was a purchase on Nandor’s part—he wanted to watch Twilight on the big screen rather than on the little portable computing machine that Guillermo toted around.

As the energy vampire pre-games on the awkwardness in the room, Nadja and Laszlo chat animatedly with Charmaine and the other wives. They were a hit amongst the wives—not that either were complaining.

“How did you two say you met again?” Charmaine asks innocently, sipping white wine casually from a crystal goblet that Guillermo had fortunately cleaned thoroughly beforehand. It was unlikely she would contract any blood-borne illnesses from drinking from the glass, but even if she did, it wasn’t like she would ever make the connection.

“Oh, it was absolutely riveting,” Laszlo pipes up, flashing a sweet smile in Nadja’s direction.

Nadja nods, lacing her fingers with her husband’s.“Yes, I hypnotized him into letting me into his home where we made passionate love together. I knew he was the one immediately.”

Charmaine giggles, swatting a hand playfully. “How forward! Nadja, I’m proud of you! You knew what you wanted and got it! I played coy with my Shaunie for weeks before he finally got the balls to ask me on a date.”

Nadja preens under the attention. As much as she loved her housemates, it was always nice to get a little bit of attention from some elegant ladies.

Likewise, Nandor is preening under the attention of Shaun and his boring human friends.

“Yo, is that a real 14th century battle axe?” Shaun asks, momentarily pulled away from the football game. The human had apparently been a history major in college, which was why he had taken a sudden and vested interest in the weapons that lined the walls. It turned out that Shaun wasn’t as brain scrambled as the vampires had thought—within a few months of the incident, he had returned to his original mental state, his love for Charmaine shining through with every doting action. It was a win-win by all accounts.

Nandor grins wider, countenance a strange mix of glee and bloodlust. In other words, it was a purely Nandor-like expression. “Yessss. I decapitated many a foe with this axe.”

Shaun laughs, placing a hand good-naturedly on Nandor’s shoulder. Nandor pulls his lips into a snarl before he remembers himself and relaxes. He wasn’t used to humans touching him aside from Guillermo and tries not to cringe at the light dusting of orange on the man’s fingertips from his messy bag of Cheetos. Guillermo always complained that the vampires left a mess everywhere they went (whether it was from tracking in dirt, snow, or blood), but humans could be just as messy if left to their own devices.

“You know, I always thought you were the quiet one in the house but man, you’re actually a riot!”

Nandor cocks his head. “I am going to assume that is a compliment even though I never rioted personally. Except in the 70s but that was some time ago. And really I just wanted an excuse to set something on fire. I mean where are all the peasants nowadays? Back in my youth they were everywhere and as flammable as matchsticks. I miss setting peasants on fire...”

Guillermo sits in one of the armchairs and rolls his eyes hard enough to almost cause himself physical pain. Between watching the game and keeping track of the vampires, it was going to be a long night. At least Shaun had brought nachos (edible ones, not ones made from burnt batteries—something he had heard about from the vampires’ last ‘Superb Owl’ party), Guillermo reflects, popping another cheesy tortilla chip into his mouth.

It is then that Shaun swivels around to stare at Guillermo as if he is just seeing him for the first time. His stare, while not overtly rude, still makes the ex-familiar squirm in his seat. It’s a bizarre and awkward five seconds of sustained eye contact before Shaun blinks, coming back to himself. Guillermo couldn’t help but wonder if the weird moment was a byproduct of having his brain scrambled.

“So, how long have you two been together?” Shaun asks, gaze flickering from Guillermo to Nandor.

“Over a decade now,” Nandor says, completely oblivious to the romantic insinuation in Shaun’s words. He puffs his chest out proudly, hands pressed to his hips.

Guillermo stuffs another nacho into his mouth and silently prays for a bolt of lightning to strike him down. He’s unsure if he could live through the mortification that would undoubtedly occur when Nandor eventually realized that Shaun—their average, football loving human neighbor—thought they were a couple.

Shaun whistles. “Damn… now that’s devotion. How’d you meet, if you don’t mind me asking?”

At this, Nandor’s lips twist into a familiar grimace. “It is… a long story. But basically Guillermo showed up at my doorstep and refused to leave.”

Shaun raises an eyebrow, angling back towards Guillermo. “Good for you, man! I may be as straight as a ruler, but even I can see how you’d get the hots for a guy like Nandor. I think you two are a good match.”

“Oh… T-thank you,” Guillermo finally speaks, letting out a strangled thanks before reaching for his glass of water. It is not the first time that night that he wished he had chosen a glass of wine over staying hydrated, but he chugs the lukewarm water all the same.

“We are a good match,” Nandor agrees, apparently oblivious to Guillermo’s rising embarrassment. “Guillermo is Guillermo. No matter what, I am glad that he’s by my side.”

Guillermo can’t help the soft smile that darts across his lips. Anxieties quieted for the moment, Guillermo basks in the rare, open expression on Nandor’s face. It’s something he feels he could make a home out of, if he was given the chance to do so. For now, though, he merely tries to commit the scene to memory, gaze tracing the crow's feet etched in the corners of Nandor's eyes and the way his natural grin was slightly lopsided, one fang jutting out to press against his bottom lip. Once again, Nandor was somehow beautiful and mesmerizing without even trying, to Guillermo's immense despair. 

All too soon, the half time show ends and the football game returns to the screen. All the men—even Nandor and Laszlo—somehow end up transfixed by the game while the women chat, drink, and play board games in the barely-used kitchen. It’s easily one of the more exciting nights that the vampires had in the last century or so, though none of them would ever embarrass themselves enough to admit it aloud.

In the end, no one is harmed during the party and all the humans shuffle home tired but alive and with the same amount of blood they had when they first entered the vampires’ residence. And even though the Superb Owl never showed, everyone agrees that the party was still a marked success. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. ty for all the lovely comments on ch.1; i'll be sure to reply in the morning once i am no longer tired & headache-y <333


	3. Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor intercepts a spell that was meant for Nadja. Now, he is the one dealing with a sudden dose of mortality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for a brief blood clot description--idk i just don't want nandor to ruin bubble tea for someone lol

.

.

It’s all a reflex, really. Nandor sees Lilith raise a hand in the general direction of Nadja and he darts out in front of her before his brain can catch up to what his stupid body has done. Laszlo, who had been pinned to the ceiling, falls flat on his face just as Nandor cries out, the force of the spell launching him clear across the room. He’s unconscious long before his head hits the opposite wall with a worrying _crack_.

**

Upon waking, Nandor realizes three things simultaneously:

  1. He is tucked under the covers of the bed in the blue room—Guillermo’s room, actually, now that the whole _I’m a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing bullshit_ is out in the open.



  1. It is dark in the room. It should be a comfort, knowing that the sun has long set, but instead, all he feels is dread. _It’s dark in the room and he can’t see anything._



  1. His fangs are gone. Completely gone. His tongue glides over a rather blunt canine and Nandor feels himself growing woozy with the sweeping realization.



_“Guillermo? Nadja? Laszlo? Colin Robinson?”_ He calls out all of his housemates’ names with obvious panic, his once silent heart beating frantically in his chest.

“Stop doing that,” he hisses to himself, swatting at his own chest. His heart, of course, doesn’t listen. If anything, the tempo increases as the seconds stretch on. Eventually, Nandor fumbles for a light, knowing that Guillermo had insisted on having an electric lamp on his bedside table.

The light flickers on just as the door to the room swings open, startling the three vampires into shrinking back with a collective hiss. Guillermo walks in, unbothered by the light, and it takes Nandor a moment to reconcile the fact that Guillermo was alive and well despite not being able to hear his heartbeat—no, the only sound he could hear currently was the echoing rush of the very human blood rushing through his own veins.

“So… uh, how are you feeling?” Guillermo begins, one hand hesitantly reaching out to assumedly rest comfortingly on Nandor’s shoulder.

Nandor grasps Guillermo’s hand before he can reach his shoulder and just holds it, surprised to find that the human’s temperature feels almost exactly the same as his own. It makes him grip Guillermo’s palm even tighter—nothing was making any sense, but he trusted that Guillermo would know what to do as the resident human of the house.

“What is happening to me?” Nandor asks, nearly blubbering. With the torrent of once long-dead biological systems flickering to life inside of him, he felt an unstable rush of emotions that were now no longer blunted by his lack of physiological reaction. Mostly though, he felt confused and tired.

“The spell that hit you… well, it was a powerful spell. It turned you back into a human,” Guillermo explains, wincing at the death grip Nandor had on his hand.

As if coming back to himself, Nandor releases Guillermo’s hand. He whips his head over to the three silent vampires in the corner and glares openly.

“Well?” he begins, exasperated. He tilts his head and brushes his hair to the side, exposing the column of his neck. “Nadja? Laszlo? Are you two waiting for an invitation or something? Just bite me already, drain me of my blood, and turn me back into an undead creature of the night!”

Laszlo shares an anxious look with Nadja. “Well, old chap, about that…”

Nadja continues on, concern evident on her face. “Lilith said the spell would wear off eventually and that it would be dangerous to try and turn you back ourselves. It could kill you—well, kill you permanently. You’d be very, very dead.”

“It’s certainly a stroke of bad luck,” Laszlo drawls. “But I’m sure you’ll be back to your unholy blood-drinking self in no time!”

**

The learning curve (or re-learning curve, in Nandor’s case) when it came to being human was quite steep. Nandor had already managed to make a number of silly, human foibles now that he was back to being mortal. He had actually screeched at seeing his own reflection in one of the mirrors in the hall, but quickly recovered once the shock wore off. Guillermo had to practically drag him away from the reflective surface, but Nandor had pocketed a small hand-mirror on his walk back to his crypt.

He had also screamed when Guillermo had suddenly pushed the curtains aside to dust the windowsill in the music room. The first touch of sunlight had him quivering almost pathetically, but upon feeling no pain, Nandor grew to love the sensation of the sun on his skin. The warmth lulled him into a happy lethargy and he soon fell asleep on the floor of the library, curled in the light like a sunbathing cat. It was actually so cute that Guillermo couldn’t help but snap a quick picture. After all, Nandor wasn’t going to be human forever; perhaps the man, once he was a vampire again, would want a picture or two for sentimentality’s sake.

Another awkward adjustment for Nandor was reminding himself that he could no longer turn into a vapor or fly around as a bat or even open doors with his mind. He ended up walking into a few too many doors than he’d like to admit and embarrassed himself in front of Laszlo and Nadja when he went to follow them on their nightly hunt and almost jumped off the roof. It was only thanks to Guillermo’s quick reflexes that he was tugged back inside at the last moment.

Oh, and how could he forget about eating? Solid foods were… a challenge at first, but Nandor did enjoy getting to try all the new human foods that did not exist when he was human.

“I like this bubble-y tea!” Nandor declared, taking another sip of the drink, chewing the tapioca ball thoughtfully.

Guillermo gave a small smile. “I’m glad. I really wasn’t sure what your taste buds would be like after, well, centuries of only drinking blood.”

Nandor nodded. “Yes, I am still preferring liquids, but I actually find the tapioca to be fun and refreshing! It reminds me of when I am feasting on a victim and they happen to have a clot. Or when I bite down on a particularly thick vein—it’s very chewy, like this!”

While Guillermo eyed his own drink with a dismayed and slightly nauseous gulp, Colin Robinson suddenly began to chuckle. Which Guillermo knew to be only an omen of bad things to come.

“Hey, Nandor, has Guillermo told you about jerky yet? It’s very chewy.”

Nandor’s eyes immediately lit up. “Jerky? Does it come from an animal related to the turkey?”

“No,” Colin Robinson says, smiling devilishly. “But you know what might be fun? I could give you a list of foods that I think would remind you of the chewy bits in humans. Like jerky. Marshmallows. Or jello. You strike me as a guy who’d like jello a lot, actually.”

Inwardly, Guillermo wondered how many foods Nandor was going to ruin for him.

(It turned out to be a lot of foods. Like _a lot_. Like a worryingly large amount of food.)

**

Now, three days into being human, he was experiencing his first bout of human insomnia. Vampires were fortunate that their undead circadian rhythms were relatively self-sufficient. The moment it was dawn, the vampires naturally felt their bodies and minds drift off into an unconscious state. Nandor never had to do much to make himself sleepy—and if he were having trouble sleeping due to a bad dream or some other fear, he could usually fall asleep if Guillermo stayed in the room, letting him relax to the gentle sound of his heartbeat.

Sprawled uncomfortably in the perpetually open coffin (because, of course, he now needed to breathe), Nandor gave a frustrated sigh. No matter what he did, he just couldn’t fall asleep. His coffin, which he had slept comfortably in for centuries, suddenly felt cramped and claustrophobia-inducing. It was infuriating—another reminder that he was human no longer fit for sleeping like a vampire did.

Tiptoeing carefully out of his coffin, Nandor crept into the big blue room. He thought he could sneak into the bed without making a noise, but he had forgotten how extra clumsy his human reflexes were. He tripped over a discarded stake and fell flat on his ass with a cry of surprise, immediately startling the human in the queen-sized bed.

“What the fuck?” Guillermo muttered aloud at the sound, still half-asleep. When he flicked the light on and put on his glasses, he was met with the odd sight of Nandor sprawled on the floor, an awkward grimace on his lips.

“What are you doing on the floor?”

“What are you doing with stakes lying around?” Nandor countered, flashing his teeth as if he still had fangs. “It’s very dangerous! What if I had fallen and broken my neck?”

“…Well, I really wasn’t expecting someone to come creeping into my room,” Guillermo replied, deadpan.

With a grumble, Nandor rose to his feet and trudged towards the bed.

“W-wait, what are you doing now?” Guillermo asked, cheeks flushing. He was immediately grateful that Nandor couldn’t hear his heart at the moment.

“Move over. I am going to sleep here with you.”

Obediently, Guillermo obliged, still somewhat in shock as Nandor burrowed under the covers, pulling the sheets up over his chest.

“Goodnight, Guillermo,” Nandor sighed, fingers brushing lazily against the human’s open palm as he turned over onto his side, eyes fluttering closed. It seemed that Nandor gravitated towards Guillermo’s warmth, edging closer to the center of the bed. And if he felt any awkwardness in sharing a bed with his ex-familiar, he certainly didn’t make it known.

“Goodnight, Nandor,” Guillermo replied, also settling onto his side. Before he shut his eyes, he saw Nandor’s lips pull into a relaxed smile and it made something in his heart lurch at the sight. 

Just as Guillermo was on the cusp of sleep, he heard and felt Nandor begin to snore loudly _—_ something he definitely didn’t do as a vampire. Still, Guillermo didn’t have it in him to be upset. Instead, he thought he would invest in some soundproof ear-buds since he had the sneaking suspicion that Nandor would be sharing his bed until he was a vampire again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can u believe i somehow snuck the bed-sharing trope into this? now that's what i call innovation lmao 
> 
> also this may become a full-fledged oneshot in the future bc i love the idea of 1 or more of the vamps becoming human for a bit... like if this doesn't happen in canon than u know it's my duty as a fic writer to rectify this tbh


	4. Glitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor has some serious thoughts. Luckily, Nadja and Laszlo are there to help pick up the pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp this turned into a nadja/nandor/laszlo drabble somehow? i just love their relationship & the dynamic between the three of them.

.

.

Nandor lazed about in the music room, some song of Laszlo and Nadja’s crooning from the phonograph in the corner. He was feeling oddly restless, but was also in no mood to actually brave the chilly winter night.

With a vague sense of nostalgia, Nandor flipped through his well-worn copy of Twilight—well, it was actually Guillermo’s copy, truthfully, something he had _borrowed_ during the first year that Guillermo became his familiar. He never got around to returning it, not that he was sure Guillermo even wanted it back. It was no secret that his familiar was more of an Anne Rice fan and that his love of fictional vampires started and ended with some vampire named Armand.

Not that Nandor cared or anything.

“Guillermo?” Nandor called, squinting at one of the paragraphs in the book. Most of the lore was completely off from reality, but there was one interesting tidbit that he had somehow forgotten about.

His familiar trotted in, a feather duster in tow, flashing a tired but genuine smile. He had dusting duty this week—there was now a chore wheel for all of the Staten Island house inhabitants, though Guillermo did still end up doing the more menial chores. Habits were hard to break, after all. “Is there something you need, Nandor?”

“Do you remember this shit from the books?” Nandor asked, pointing vaguely to the book. “They say that a vampire bites a human and _bam_ , they become a vampire!”

“But you’re fine with them being able to walk out in the sun and… _sparkling_?” Guillermo retorts, wincing at the last word.

“Yes! A vampire who can go out in the sun… that would be a very powerful vampire indeed. We are not counting energy vampires, of course. And glitter is fun! Maybe you are just being a party-poop. Lots of humans love glitter—and vampires too.”

Guillermo nods his assent, but doesn’t try to hide his eye roll nor the fond smile that briefly passes his lips.

Nandor straightens up from his lounging position, a curious gleam in his eyes. “Guillermo? Did you think that vampires had venom in their fangs when you first became my familiar? I mean it sounds cool, but imagine how inconvenient that would be. You would have to make sure every human you fed on was very dead or you would have so many vampiric children."

“Not really… I never thought much about that stuff. The science behind being turned. I just knew I wanted to be a vampire.”

“And you still want that?” Nandor asked, flashing his teeth. “A vampiric vampire hunter is rare, but not completely unheard of.”

Truthfully, Nandor had been thinking a lot about Guillermo. It was hard not to dwell on his familiar after the revelation at the theatre. And even though he still called Guillermo his familiar, he really was just a friend at this point. Another housemate, albeit a human one.

Nandor heard Guillermo’s pulse elevate, gaze darting around nervously. He fumbles for a response. “Yes? I mean I’m pretty sure I do.”

The conversation lulls to a stop as Laszlo and Nadja glide into the room, giddy from a night spent gorging on drug blood. Nandor watches, silent, as the pair began to dance, swaying elegantly around the furniture as Guillermo ducks out of the room.

A small, small part of him wishes that Guillermo had stayed. That they could dance like Laszlo and Nadja did, swaying to the bawdy music playing from the phonograph without a care in the world.

He can imagine it now, Guillermo’s warm hand in his, the soft hitch of surprise as he dips Guillermo back, exposing more of the delicious skin of his throat. The temptation to bite down increasing as he pressed his mouth to his pulse point, fangs teasing but never pressing hard enough to pierce flesh. It is a thought that makes him unconsciously ball his hands into fists, slicing through the inside of his cheek as a familiar ache consumed him.

Eleven years of temptation and here he was, unraveling at the seams because Guillermo no longer seemed as sure of his desire to be a vampire anymore. Nandor had assumed that this desire alone would be enough to keep Guillermo at his side, but without it? Would there be a day when Guillermo would leave for good—choosing his stakes and his garlic and his crucifixes over the vampires? Over him?

So lost in the labyrinth of his mind, he doesn’t realize that Nadja and Laszlo had stopped dancing, staring at him with equal amounts of thinly veiled concern.

Wordlessly, Nadja beckons him forward, stretching a hand towards him.

Laszlo does the same, leaving ample space between the pair for Nandor to squeeze into if he wanted to.

“Well, you big bloody turkey? Are you going to come dance with us or not?” Nadja snaps, though not unkindly.

Rising from the sofa, Nandor takes Nadja’s outstretched hand. Laszlo places his palm on his shoulder, giving a mischievous grin.

“We missed you, Nandor,” Laszlo says, waggling an eyebrow salaciously. “You know how much fun all three of us usually get into when absolutely wasted on drug blood.”

At this, Nandor chuckles fondly, falling back naturally into the rhythm of their dance. That was the thing about Nadja and Laszlo—despite how different he was from them, they all clicked together, three lonely puzzle pieces coming together to brave the cruel ocean of immortality.

There was a reason he decided to live with them, after all. He could have lived with anyone, really, used his past credentials as a vicious warlord to entice the sort of vampires who cared about stuff like power and world domination. But he didn't want that—he wanted them. He loved them—loved them for all their flaws, crassness, and general disregard for rules and protocols.

Settling down onto the sofa after a few solid hours of dancing together, Nandor rests his head comfortably on Laszlo’s shoulder. Nadja’s long nails gently stroke at his scalp as he sighs contentedly, eyes fluttering closed. They rarely got to indulge in each other’s presence like this—all of them with too much pride to ever act this soft openly. But after a handful of near-death experiences involving the Vampiric Council, they had all learned to be a bit more open with each other. A bit kinder. Nandor wouldn’t trade these moments for the world and he had a sneaking suspicion that his housemates felt the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not depicted in the drabble: guillermo secretly recording a little clip of them all dancing together bc it's lowkey very sweet & funny to watch


	5. Hypnosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo is having trouble sleeping and asks Nandor for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 5!! this one is directly inspired by my own continuous bouts of insomnia... thank u to everyone who has already commented/left kudos! i'm really enjoying doing a drabble a day~

.

.

“Are you sure about this, Guillermo?” Nandor asks with a poorly veiled grimace.

The vampire eyes the pliant form of his ex-familiar underneath the bed sheets, the dark circles under his eyes more apparent in the dim glow of the candlelight. The last time he had seen Guillermo this tired was the night that he told him to drink more water after the incident involving dried poops.

(Well, okay, Nandor knew now that they weren’t dried poops, but something called _chocolate espresso beans_ —this didn’t mean he wouldn’t tease Guillermo about it for ages, though.)

“For the eighteenth time, yes!” Guillermo snaps, lips set into a hardened frown. He sighs a moment later. “I’m sorry… I’m just so tired. Please, help me fall asleep already.”

“You are sure you do not want Laszlo or Nadja to do this—“

“Nandor, you are the only person I’d trust to do this.”

Nandor knows that if he still had a functioning heart, it would have skipped a beat at Guillermo’s words. He had called him a person, not a vampire. Which meant a lot to Nandor, truthfully. It wasn’t like Guillermo had a lot of vampire friends who could hypnotize him, but given that his human friend, Jeremy, had offered to help put him to sleep using just normal human hypnosis techniques (Jeremy was apparently trying to break into a career as a magician, for some bizarre reason), but Guillermo had still chosen him anyway despite knowing that Nandor’s hypnosis streak wasn’t necessarily the best.

Nandor considers his words carefully. It could be very easy to make Guillermo accidentally slip into a coma and he didn’t want a repeat of the brain scramblies incident with Shaun. Eventually, and with more trepidation than he normally felt at the thought of hypnotizing a human, he reaches forward to tug the covers further up Guillermo’s chest. He was stalling somewhat, but hopefully Guillermo couldn’t tell.

“Alright. Here we go,” Nandor begins, pressing a cold hand to Guillermo’s cheek. Touch wasn’t necessary to hypnotize a human, but it secretly calmed some of Nandor’s nerves to feel Guillermo’s soft, warm skin underneath his fingertips.

“Guillermo, you will sleep soundly and peacefully for as long as you need to feel fully rested.”

With a soft smile, Guillermo’s eyes flutter closed, chest rising and falling underneath the covers. Nandor watches silently, gaze drawn to the mess of curls over Guillermo’s forehead. He really had gone soft, hadn’t he? Somehow, the realization doesn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would. 

“Goodnight, Guillermo...” Nandor whispers, running a gentle hand through the man’s hair. He blows out the candles a moment later, bathing the room in darkness. Nandor’s eyes glow a preternatural gold in the dark as he quietly gathers up the discarded vampire hunting equipment strewn around the room. He manages to pick up all the stakes barehanded and comes back into Guillermo’s room once he has his head-ripping gloves on.

He wasn’t currently planning on ripping off any heads, but the gloves were thick enough to keep his skin safe from the crucifixes that he plucked off the floor with a hiss, tossing them onto Guillermo’s rickety armoire. Finally pleased with the state of the room, Nandor leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

**

The waiting was the worst part.

Though he had chosen his words carefully, Nandor was still nervous. He had never hypnotized Guillermo—at least not to the extent he had done so now. He had made Guillermo forget a few things in the past, but they were usually embarrassing moments on Nandor’s part. They didn’t leave any significant gaps in Guillermo’s memory.

This was decidedly different. So when he woke the next night and found that Guillermo was still sleeping, he went to aimlessly pace his crypt with enough discomfort that Colin Robinson had stopped by to thank him for the free meal.

Hours later, he goes into Guillermo’s room where the human was still sleeping peacefully. He didn’t normally like doing this, but it was a special circumstance. He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else if he didn’t get confirmation that Guillermo was not simply trapped in his mind. Fortunately, the realm of dreams was an easy place for a vampire to go.

Hesitantly, Nandor tries to reach into Guillermo’s mind. It’s similar in concept to how the ether works, but different at the same time. Hypnosis meant that you had full control over the human. Theoretically, Nandor could walk into Guillermo’s mind without invitation, but he waited to see if he would get some kind of quiet affirmation that Guillermo was alright with his presence and influence.

Sure enough, he felt the door to Guillermo’s mind drift open in greeting and so he stepped inside. Immediately, he was met with a swell of warmth and affection despite the overall empty dark of Guillermo's sleeping mind. To his right, a fireplace suddenly roared into existence, its orange glow illuminating the otherwise barren darkness. So this was where Guillermo’s emotions resided, Nandor realized, stepping closer to the flickering flames. An armchair materialized a moment later, which Nandor sat in with a pleased grin.

Guillermo was quite good at manipulating his own dreamscape—almost as good as a vampire.

“Yes, it is just me, Guillermo. I wanted to check-in. Make sure you are not planning to sleep for an entire season like some hibernating cave pig.”

Though it would be impossible for Guillermo to speak now in response, Nandor knew that he could still prompt the human to respond through action.

“Are you feeling alright, Guillermo? I need you to send me a sign of some kind. Anything will do.”

From the dark emerged a docile-looking raven. It landed peacefully on Nandor’s outstretched arm, head tilted curiously to the side. A conspiracy of ravens was a bad omen; one little raven with an olive branch in its mouth, however, was a good sign. Guillermo was well.

“Okay-A! So I take it that you are well rested then. Do you think you will be waking soon? Or do I need to help?”

At his words, the raven flew off, though not before depositing the olive branch in Nandor’s lap. The vampire was met again with a calming wave, something that soothed him almost immediately.

“Oh, so you will be waking soon! Great!” He flashed a fanged grin. “I’ll be here—in your room, not your mind—when you wake then.”

**

He’s not entirely sure how it happens, but he falls asleep sitting on the old stool, head pillowed on his forearms as he rests his upper body over the bed. Nandor had only meant to close his eyes for a moment, but he had used a great deal of energy entering Guillermo’s mind—apparently that had drained him more than he thought it would. 

Nandor only stirs when he feels the phantom touch of someone combing their hand through his hair.

“Guillermo?” he asks, half-awake, leaning into the touch with a pleased hum.

The hand pulls away and Nandor blinks awake, lips curling into a frown. He had been enjoying the sensation of having his hair played with.

“Looks like I woke up before you did,” Guillermo teases, looking more well rested than Nandor could recall in months, if not years.

“You slept for almost thirty-two hours,” Nandor mutters back, unable to hide the hint of fondness in his tone. _Yeesh_ , do not let yourself go without sleep like that again. It is not healthy!”

Guillermo laughs and it only makes it harder for Nandor to hide the sparkle of adoration in his eyes. “I promise I’ll try and get at least six hours of sleep a day from now on.”

“Good! Because I would be very upset if you got sick or died from not sleeping. You are not allowed to die anytime soon, understand?” Nandor knows it’s a childish request—one that Guillermo can’t really control as a human with vampire hunter blood coursing through his veins, but the words leave his mouth seemingly unbidden all the same.

Guillermo smiles one of his playful, long-suffering smiles and Nandor feels his silent heart ache at the sight. Despite everything, Guillermo was still Guillermo. “I understand… no dying anytime soon. I think I can manage that.”

It's a lovely moment, really, up until the point that Colin Robinson barges in, looking to score a quick meal by rambling about the evolution of college admission tests. He only stops when Guillermo reaches for the stake he kept in his bedside table, throwing it in warning so that it pierces the wall centimeters away from the energy vampire's face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't we all wish we had a himbo vampire that could hypnotize us into falling asleep or is that just a 'me' thing lol?


	6. Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laszlo asks Guillermo for help in the garden and a startling realization is made. In other words, the truth behind why Laszlo seems to hate Guillermo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've had this theory for awhile now (regarding laszlo), so do let me know if y'all have any thoughts regarding why laszlo seems to specifically dislike guillermo despite showing in canon that he really doesn't hate most humans (i.e., all of 2x06 'on the run').
> 
> tw for brief mention of suicidal thoughts/ideations. it's nothing graphic, but it is present, nevertheless.

.

.

Sometimes, Laszlo asks for help in the garden. It’s mostly his project, keeping the backyard full of fruit, flowers, and hedges shaped like vulvas, but there are times where he needs an extra hand.

“Guillermo?” he calls, his pronunciation somewhat improved now that he had been calling the human by his actual name for just shy of three months now.

It was surprising how quick Laszlo had changed his tune after the theatre. Of everyone in the house, Guillermo was sure that Laszlo hated him the most. There had always been a thin veneer of disgust on the vampire’s face whenever they interacted in the past, but now, Guillermo had noticed that Laszlo had actually almost smiled at him a few times.

(They were more like open-mouthed grimaces, but he did see the briefest upward twitch of the man’s lips. It counted in Guillermo’s mind.)

“Need something, Laszlo?” Guillermo asks, setting down the shovel before he approached. It was his week for corpse duty, to his chagrin, but fortunately the vampires had actually learned to be a bit more… frugal when it came to their victims. It was a pain, but they brought less suspicion upon themselves if they simply fed from multiple people and hypnotized them afterwards than if humans continued to go missing at a dizzying rate. Between rogue vampire hunters and the Council, there was only so much Guillermo could do to protect them, after all.

“Yes, I’m afraid that I might need some help pruning the roses. I want to get this done before the storm rolls in.”

Nodding his assent, Guillermo takes the extra pair of shears from the vampire. They work in relative silence, a thin sheen of sweat dotting Guillermo’s forehead despite the relatively cold air that rustles through his hair.

Bizarrely enough, it doesn’t feel awkward working beside Laszlo. It was like Guillermo was finally getting a glimpse of the real Laszlo Cravensworth—of the vampire when he was not actively trying to antagonize Guillermo. The companionable silence stretched on as Guillermo attempted to take quick, fleeting glances at the vampire.

In all his time at the house, Guillermo could count on one hand the amount of conversations he had with Laszlo that didn’t involve the man insulting him in some way.

Unfortunately for Guillermo, it seemed as if his sneaky glances were far from sneaky—Laszlo wasn’t Nandor. He paid better attention to his surroundings than Nandor could ever be bothered to. “Well, Giz—I mean, Guillermo, are you planning on burning a hole in my head or are you going to ask whatever question is poised at the tip of your vampire killer tongue?”

Somehow, Laszlo’s voice was almost teasing, if not playful. It made Guillermo hopeful for an actual answer to a question that had been plaguing him since the first day he became Nandor’s familiar.

“…Do you or Nadja know the story behind how Nandor was turned?”

Laszlo raised a brow. “You were his familiar for eleven years and you still don’t know?”

Guillermo shook his head.

The vampire gave him a look that was borderline sympathetic. “Well, old chap, then there’s likely a reason Nandor hasn’t divulged that particular secret. It’s not my place to tell you what happened, but I’ll say this much: it wasn’t pleasant. Not like my dear Nadja’s lovely visage at my window and intense sexual intercourse... and death. It was all very romantic.”

At Laszlo’s fond expression, Guillermo pressed on. “So you really don’t have any... anger towards Nadja? She ripped you away from a perfectly normal human life.”

Laszlo waved a hand. “Pah, Guillermo, you don’t get it. Nadja _saved_ me. There was a horrible plague in my village and I had already been affected.” He paused, stroking his chin in thought. “I was also horribly depressed about it all and was ready to throw myself out of the very same window Nadja appeared in. Though that was less related to the plague and more to my state of being. I never got along with my family. Always the black sheep, as they would say—like I had any control over it.”

“Why... why are you telling me all this? I thought you hated me,” Guillermo admitted, stunned at Laszlo's honesty. This was more than Laszlo had ever spoken about regarding his own life before he was turned. So why now? What made Laszlo open up after eleven years of either shunning or antagonizing him?

For a long time, Laszlo was silent. It was apparent that he was fighting some sort of internal struggle with himself before eventually sighing in defeat. “The moment you darkened our doorstep, do you know what I thought? I thought you wouldn’t last a week. I was sure Nandor would kill and drain you before you so much as left a bloodstain on our upholstery. I mean how could he resist when you scampered after him so willingly, an obedient, naive little virgin duckling trailing after a bloodsucking creature of the night?

“But I was wrong. Nandor, the bloody hypocrite, called for a house meeting one night when you were off doing hell knows what for him. He said in no uncertain terms that if either Nadja or myself so much as bared our fangs at you, we would be sorry. Which is utter bullshit—you know how poorly Nandor controls himself. He used to take little sips of our familiars when he was feeling parched. But oh no, the moment you walked into our lives, Nandor suddenly found a fucking moral compass. It infuriated me.”

Laszlo held up a painted finger when he realized Guillermo was about to speak. “I’m not done yet, Mr. Slayer. How quickly you had Nandor wrapped around your finger... I knew it would all end in bloody heartache. So I tried making your life a living nightmare so you’d leave before you did more damage. See, Nandor is a physically strong vampire—a warrior beyond measure, but don’t fucking tell him I said that. His heart, however, is weak. He falls quickly and blindly and grows as attached as ivy to a trellis.” Laszlo stares pointedly at Guillermo. “You’re the bloody trellis, Guillermo, and while I think Nandor is an idiot for falling for his familiar—his vampire hunting ex-familiar, now, I suppose—I can tell that you also hold a soft spot for him. So don’t fuck it up.”

Before Guillermo can even respond, the vampire is already rising to his feet, dusting off dirt from the lapels of his coat. He turned to look at Guillermo, expression dark.

“The roses look fine now. If you tell Nadja or Nandor we had this conversation, I’ll absolutely behead you, consequences be damned. Understand?”

With a nervous gulp, Guillermo nodded. “T-thank you, Laszlo.”

Laszlo hissed lightly in disgust, trudging back towards the house and slamming the door behind him. After setting the shovel and shears back in the tool shed, Guillermo also makes his way back to the house. To his surprise, Laszlo had actually lit a candle near the back door, allowing Guillermo to enter the house easily.

It was a small gesture, really, but it brought a wide grin to Guillermo’s face. It felt like the start of a tentative—a very, very tentative—friendship.


	7. Doll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadja’s ghost has a complex relationship with the one living human in the house. This may or may not have something to do with how Guillermo reminds her of what it was like to be alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the quote used in this drabble has been living rent free in my head for like 2 weeks... someone pls come talk to me abt it & how it relates to the wwdits vampires ;v; also i've been meaning to do a nadja (pre-vampire) vs. guillermo character study for ages so here is a shortened version of it lol 
> 
> tw for a brief mention of nausea; there's nothing too graphic, though!

_._

_._

_I’m going to think about death until_

_my mouth runs. I’m going to look at death_

_with a face as terrible as his own._

_I don’t want to scare you;_

_after death there are two alternatives,_

_both heartless:_

_memory & forgetfulness._

-Jon Anderson, from “Creative Writing 307,” _Poetry_

**

Being a ghost wasn’t really all that bad once you got used to it.

Nadja’s ghost liked that there was nothing left to fear—the worst had already happened and yet she remained, clinging to the world of the living just as her vampire half had done. Death held little power over either of them; it skulked through the house like a lion, waiting for its pound of flesh, and so Nadja gave her dues: human skulls, half-rotted bodies, taxidermy birds of prey set in glass cases. The house was a museum of death, a study in all the ways someone could die—and die, but yet still live.

Here, death took on many shapes. Sometimes, it disguised itself as a man. Other times, it took the beguiling shape of a lover. And, when death grew tired of creeping in the shadows, it took the form of a monster. It became a warning, a demonstration, a reflex. _Look here,_ Death says, voice taking the cadence of a swarm of mayflies bursting to life at the first touch of spring. Here one moment, gone the next. The sound, while brief, is deafening, like millions of wings beating against the fragile shell of your ear. _Look here and see my face._

Nadja’s ghost had watched as the only creature in the house with a living heartbeat skewered a vampire with deadly, heartless precision. She is equal parts fascinated and repulsed, an unfamiliar flicker of fear licking like fire at her heels. This human could be the death of her—a final ending trapped underneath layers of burial dirt. Without her vampiric half, the ghost would wither away, untethered from the world of the living.

For a moment, she can almost imagine what the human must be feeling. The phantom touch of Death at his throat, the shuddering exhale of rot and decay on the dead vampire’s lips, the way the body convulsed, speared by the hastily fashioned stake, its uneven edges and grooves telling a story of quiet desperation. Guillermo had taken to making stakes by sawing off the wooden legs of the antique chairs that were otherwise left to collect dust in the attic. It would almost be amusing, the ghost thinks, recalling the hunched form of the man as he whittled away at the wood for hours, if not for the ageless look in his eyes as he did the task—as if he were just a vessel for the Van Helsing blood that flowed through his veins. As if he were a doll for a careless spirit, his possession occurring in clumsy half measures.

Once the vampire had let out its final death rattle, Guillermo let the bloodied stake roll to the floor, returning to himself. He had slipped out of Death’s grasp yet again, the panic and adrenaline bleeding out of him as he willed his legs to keep moving, to put more distance between himself and the place that, if not for his ancestry, would have been his grave. He was alive when he shouldn’t have been and the thing that he killed—something that was supposed to be ancient and deathless—was now rotting away in a broom closet.

 _Ah,_ Nadja’s ghost thinks. _Here is a familiar sight. Something not quite human, scared shitless, no home to be found._ A pause, her incorporeal limbs folding inward, clutching at where her mother’s necklace used to reside just beneath the dip of her collarbone. _Was I this pathetic when I was alive? How disgusting…_

The whole incident leaves a sour, lingering taste in the back of her throat despite her not having a real physical form. _Bile_ , she realizes, returning swiftly to her dwelling inside the innocuous-looking doll. In the days after being bitten by her sire, a female vampire disguised as a snake, Nadja had gone through the stages of death just like any other undead creature. The worst part had been the uncontrollable bouts of nausea. It was as if her body was trying to expel all the parts of her that were incompatible with vampirism, leaving her hollow and cold and scared. Her organs then shriveled, making room for the tendrils of darkness that would eventually become a part of her. 

It had been a painful transition, excruciatingly so, and Nadja’s ghost immediately felt a flare of hatred towards Guillermo—how dare there be a human here to remind her of what it was like to fight tooth and nail to survive!

(How dare there be a human here to remind her of what she lost when she died.)

After seeing him kill the first assassin sent by the Council, Nadja’s ghost no longer strays far from the safety of her doll. She stays with her vampiric half, sings along to old, familiar songs in ancient Greek, and tries not to think about how easily all of this could be taken from her.

**

Being a ghost wasn’t really all that bad once you got used to it.

There were good days and bad days, but most days were good. There were days where a black goat would chew through your hair and a layer of paint on your cheek or days where you were too weak in spirit to do more than flutter the eyes of the doll you were currently possessing. But there were also days where you would watch the sunrise from the back porch of a house full of vampires while a vampire slayer sipped his coffee in rumination. She liked those days. 

“You’re going to kill them,” Nadja’s ghost says, her voice echoing matter-of-factly within the cavern of his skull.

Guillermo’s gaze flickers down, something like a tempered smile flitting across his lips. How many times had they played this game by now? “No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I won’t.”

“How do you know?”

The human grows quiet. He takes a sip of his coffee, stretches an arm above his head. Lets the cold air stream through his lungs.

The dawn opens before them to reveal an intricate tapestry of violet, orange, and gold, framed by slivers of sunlight that brush against the porch steps. It’s beautiful. It’s just like every other sunrise Nadja had seen while alive and also completely different. Perhaps that was the thing about dying: it gave you a new perception of the world. A new set of eyes. You would always search for the things that immortality could never bring back. Her vampiric half would never get the chance to bask in the sunlight like this.

(But that was the truth of it all, wasn’t it? Resurrection always comes with a price.)

“Because I don’t want to,” he says, stepping out from underneath the awning to join the doll on the wooden steps. The sunlight haloes his head, brown curls glowing a dim gold.

Nadja’s ghost looks away, unable to stare at the sharp pinpricks of light. “That’s it?”

Guillermo sighs. It almost sounds fond. Tired, but fond. “Because I love them.”

 _Love,_ Nadja’s ghost thinks. _I hope that is enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay is it a sign that i had to rescue a baby lizard from the jaw's of death (i.e., my 19 yr old cat's mouth) midway thru editing this? she is currently very mad at me now lmao but it was worth it!


	8. Unholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first week of living with vampire roommates is a learning curve for everyone involved. 
> 
> Or: a look into the first few days of Guillermo’s life as a familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is only vaguely tied to the prompt tbh... but hopefully it still makes sense? i really just wanted an excuse to expand more on guillermo's early days as a familiar! hope y'all enjoy!! & ty to everyone who's been commenting/leaving kudos <333 y'all are seriously the sweetest ;v;

.

.

“Laszlo! Drop him right now!”

With a frustrated hiss, Laszlo released his hold on Guillermo’s shoulders, allowing the newly minted familiar to fall with a screech from the ceiling.

Before Guillermo could hit the floor, having begun the equivalent of a two-story nose-dive thanks to Laszlo’s less than cheery greeting, he falls onto something decidedly cold, but soft. With his glasses no longer perched on his nose, he can only balk at the Nandor-shaped blob underneath him before shakily rising to his feet. 

“Oh God, are you okay?” Guillermo says without thinking, reaching out a hand in Nandor’s general direction.

The vampire swats his hand away, rising without his familiar’s help. “Watch your mouth! Sheesh, this is the thanks I get after catching you?”

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say the umm… G-word,” the man frets, scanning the floor nearby for his glasses. Well, scanning as best as he can since he was so nearsighted that he couldn’t even discern Nandor’s confused expression.

“Why are you squinting so much?”

Before Guillermo can respond, he feels a well-manicured finger tap his shoulder. A blob he knows is Nadja from the swish of her heavily layered dress comes into view as he turns around, his glasses held in her hands like a peace offering.

“Sorry that my Laszlo can be such an idiot,” she says, gently slipping the glasses onto Guillermo’s face.

To his relief, the glasses have also somehow survived their first meeting with Laszlo. The youngest of the vampire trio had been off hunting when Guillermo was moving in his meager belongings earlier—hence the rather rude response when the human had merely stuck his hand out in greeting.

Nandor mutters something in Farsi, shooting a glare in Laszlo’s direction. “You attacked Guillermo on purpose, didn’t you? Even after I told you that I’d be getting a familiar.”

“Of course I bloody attacked him on purpose,” Laszlo sneered, straightening his cravat with a huff. “I wanted to eat him.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t…” Guillermo raises his hand, ready to contribute more to the conversation, but promptly shuts his mouth when both vampires hissed at him.

“I gave you one simple rule: don’t eat Guillermo. And what do you do?” Nandor waves a hand dismissively. “You try to eat him. You don’t respect me at all!”

“How was I supposed to know that was your familiar? He isn’t wearing a name tag.”

“He introduced himself as Guillermo and said he was my familiar,” Nandor replied, deadpan.

“I don’t think he did.”

“He did.”

“I did.”

Nadja rolled her eyes, leaving the foyer towards the direction of her and Laszlo’s chambers. “I’m going to bed. I am tired of this vampire soap opera.” she nods in Guillermo’s direction. “Good night, little human familiar. I hope you last long enough that I bother to learn your name.”

“Oh… thank you?” he questions, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. He had the distinct feeling he wasn’t going to be getting a lot of sleep that night.

**

It is half past four in the morning when Guillermo wakes to the sight of three pairs of glowing eyes in the dark.

“What the _actual_ fuck?” he yelps, sitting up quickly. He fumbles for the string of the lamp on the bedside table and pulls it, bathing the small closet-turned-bedroom in light. He hears the three vampires all collectively hiss as he slips his glasses onto his face, taking in the scene.

Nandor was sitting cross-legged at the edge of his bed while Nadja and Laszlo were floating near the ceiling. Only Nandor had the decency to look sheepish, giving his familiar an awkward little wave, fangs bared in a grimace.

“Were you guys watching me sleep?”

“No,” Nandor scoffs, folding his arms. “This isn’t Twilight. Why would we watch some human sleep?"

“Yeah,” Laszlo chimes in. “We were just weighing the pros and cons of eating you. We had eventually decided on eating you, but then you had to go and wake up. Which was quite rude of you, might I add.”

“We did not agree to that,” Nandor argued, shooting a glare up in Laszlo’s direction. “We _floated_ the idea, sure, but it was just talk. I mean you’ve been my familiar for less than a day. It wouldn’t be fair to eat you when you haven’t even had the chance to prove yourself.”

“Better watch out, old chap,” Laszlo muttered, wagging a painted finger. “Give a familiar an inch and they’ll take a mile. You’ve got a soft heart already… wouldn’t surprise me if you ended up attached to the little guy.”

“Hey, hey, hey, there is _nothing_ soft about me!” Nandor shouts, poking at his own chest with pride. “I am as hard as... as something hard! Like concrete. Or maybe brick? Which is harder—concrete or brick?”

Nadja floats elegantly to the ground, looking disinterested in the upcoming hissing match between her husband and housemate. “Yes, there is nothing soft about you except the mushy pink blob rattling around in your skull that you call a brain.”

Nandor frowns at her words but doesn’t rise to the obvious provocation. All his fight had seemingly extinguished at the sight of genuine fear in his familiar’s eyes. The man was sniffling, holding back tears, and it was so pitiful that it reminded Nandor of a raccoon trapped in a cage, except Guillermo didn’t have rabies (probably) and also wasn’t likely to claw at his face in a show of blatant rudeness to his rescuer.

Laszlo is the first to leave, a shudder of revulsion creeping over his frame. “Eughh, Nandor, your human’s _leaking_. You should fix that.”

Nadja follows out of the room after him, shooting Guillermo an apologetic look. “I am also not a fan of the waterworks. Seeing a human cry always makes me lose my appetite. Sorry, soft little familiar, but you’ll need to learn to be as hard as an armadillo if you wish to live comfortably here.”

If anything, being left alone with Nandor seemed to cause Guillermo even more anxiety. Nandor could hear his poor heart beating much too fast, the scent of his sweet-smelling and tempting blood soured by stress.

“Guillermo,” Nandor begins, tone much softer than earlier. “You have nothing to fear. Nadja and Laszlo may seem scary, but they won’t actually harm you.”

Guillermo sniffles, wrapping an arm around himself. “But Laszlo dropped me from the ceiling earlier and now you were all debating eating me while watching me sleep.”

“We were not watching you sleep.”

“You were.”

“We weren’t.”

“Okay, but you were debating eating me?”

“…Perhaps,” Nandor admits, looking away. “We aren’t very good at… denying our urges. And you’re just very tasty looking and smelling. But I wouldn’t have let them do anything. You are _my_ familiar which means you are under my protection.”

“So that means I’m not going to be a meal someday, right?"

Nandor nods. “No harm will come to you so long as you remain at my side.”

At that, some of the tension in Guillermo’s frame melted away, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Thank you, Master.”

Despite his best intentions at remaining aloof, Nandor couldn’t help but smile back. Laszlo’s words echoed in his ears, but he ignored the thought… for now. It made logical sense to have his familiar trust him. That was all this was—a little pep-talk. If Guillermo were to be his familiar for awhile, he should at least be comfortable in his presence. He didn’t like the smell of fear unless he was about to eat someone—it was a thick, almost bitter scent, that could give a human’s blood an acrid, decomposing taste if they weren’t killed quickly enough.

Nandor took the lull in conversation as his cue to leave, patting what he assumed to be Guillermo’s leg underneath the covers as he rose from the bed.

“Get some rest. Tomorrow I will show you how to use the bone saw in the garden to dismember bodies. It’s messy and smelly, but very fun.”

He was gone long before he saw the color drain from Guillermo’s face.

**

“Here,” the vampire hissed, flinging a black velvet box in Guillermo’s direction.

The familiar caught the box after it bounced off his sternum, confusion apparent in his features. “You bought me jewelry?”

Nandor huffed petulantly, expression haughty. “ _No_ , I didn’t buy you some expensive trinket. I stole it from the mall.”

Just as Guillermo opened the box, Nandor growled, taking a few more steps away from his familiar. “Put it on, quickly, before I change my mind.”

Fumbling with the silver chain, Guillermo obeyed.

“Now tuck it underneath your shirt. I don’t want Nadja or Laszlo to know that I got you a cruse—a croooo…. a crucifix.” he grounded out, clearly uncomfortable. “Yeesh, you are making me do a lot of things I don’t want to do, Guillermo. You are lucky I am such an accommodating master."

“But I didn’t ask you to buy me a cross.”

“Yes, but you were scared. And crucifixes are much better than a wreathe of garlic.” Nandor wrinkled his nose at the thought. “New rule: never eat garlic in my presence.”

“…Okay?”

“Is the necklace hidden now?”

Guillermo blinked. “Oh, yeah. It is.”

“Good.” Nandor turned to face him, hands clasped together. His expression bordered on excitement. “Are you ready to dismember a body?”

“…As I’ll ever be.”

“Then follow me. But be careful; the floors are a bit slippery... because of all the blood.”

**

One long, confusing night later, Guillermo trailed tiredly behind Nandor, following the vampire into his room. He had become well acquainted with the bone saw and had only just managed to keep his dinner down at the sight of mangled, decaying flesh. It wasn’t that he was squeamish—far from it, really. But there was something very different from seeing blood and guts on TV or in a video game and seeing them in real life. As he ran a severed leg through the saw, the reality of the situation began to sink in. He had really traded his full-time position at Panera Bread to pursue the chance to be an undead creature of the night.

“It’s time for me to rest,” Nandor said, interrupting Guillermo’s train of thought. When Guillermo didn’t move, the vampire tilted his head slightly. “Are you actively disobeying me right now?”

“N-no!” Guillermo stuttered. “I was just confused on what you wanted me to do.”

Nandor sighed. “Help me undress and get ready for coffin.”

At that, Guillermo felt his face heat up. “O-oh. Okay. So are you going to change into something else or…”

The vampire stared at him like he had suddenly grown two heads. “No. Just remove my cloak, overcoat, and boots.”

Guillermo obeyed, nerves still somewhat frazzled from the night’s events. He fumbled with the cape more than he had hoped he would, but if Nandor was annoyed, he didn’t show it. He was actually quite patient as Guillermo helped him out of his outerwear, giving him advice when it came to some of the complicated clasps of his clothing. Once Guillermo had managed to unlace and remove the vampire’s boots, Nandor pointed to an ornate brush.

“Now, I would like you to brush out my hair.”

Guillermo nodded, taking the brush. He untied Nandor’s hair, letting all of his locks fall freely to his shoulders. The brush slid easily through the vampire’s hair as he painstakingly combed through the locks, careful to not tug too harshly when he was working out any stubborn tangles. It was a surprisingly peaceful end to the night, Guillermo thought, finding that helping Nandor get ready to sleep had been his favorite duty so far. It didn’t involve any bloodshed and it was nice being trusted to help the vampire like this—at his most vulnerable, some odd part of his brain supplied.

He shook away the thought a moment later. It seemed that all the vampire literature he consumed had been more formative than he assumed if he was already noting times where his Master was most vulnerable as if he were a vampire hunter studying his target.

“You’re good at this, Guillermo,” Nandor praised, letting out a pleased hum. He leaned into the touch, allowing Guillermo to finish his brushing by gently running his fingers through the strands, making sure that there were no knots left to untangle.

Once that was done, all that was left was to bid the vampire goodnight. It’s more of a reflex, really, and Guillermo doesn’t expect the vampire to reciprocate, but he holds out his hand all the same as Nandor ascends the rickety stepladder. The vampire looks at his hand, gaze flickering from the open palm to Guillermo’s face. Hesitantly, Nandor grasps Guillermo’s palm, cold fingers curling against his skin. Guillermo misses the contact almost immediately as Nandor releases his hand and reclines further into the fur-lined coffin, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Goodnight, Guillermo…”

“Goodnight, Master,” the human echoes, closing the lid of the coffin as softly as he can.

**

Guillermo sighed as he looked in the mirror, noting the heavy bags underneath his eyes. For being only nineteen years old, he was worryingly noticing a more tired and haggard look to his features. Granted, between adjusting to living with vampire housemates and acquiring a nocturnal sleep schedule, Guillermo assumed he was doing fairly alright. He was still alive, to begin with. And Nadja had actually addressed him by name once, so it seemed that she thought he would be around longer than a few passing days.

As he took the razor to his face, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, he had made the right decision after all. Sure, he wasn’t being paid and he still had to figure out a way to come up with rent in a few weeks, but he was also one day closer to becoming an actual vampire.

Guillermo looked down as he washed off his razor, knocking it against the sink a few times before bringing it up to his face again, humming softly. Looking in the mirror, he didn’t notice that the door to the bathroom was now open even though he had closed it when he walked in earlier.

“You’re running late, Guillermo,” a familiar voice said disapprovingly.

“Fuck!” Guillermo cursed, dropping the razor in the sink basin. He swung his head around to openly gape at the vampire who hadn’t even bothered to knock before entering the bathroom. It was slowly becoming apparent to Guillermo that he would continue to struggle with remembering that vampires did not show up in mirrors or other reflective objects. "Sorry, you scared me.”

Nandor stood at the threshold, one shoulder pressed to the doorframe, fully dressed aside from his cloak. He looked ready to launch into some kind of verbal tirade against his familiar before a strange, unfamiliar expression crossed his face.

“Are you alright, Master?” Guillermo asked, taking a step forward in concern.

Nandor remained completely still, dark eyes flashing gold for a millisecond. It happened so fast that Guillermo wasn’t even sure that it did happen, that it wasn’t just a trick of the light. Before he could speak up again, he felt a cold hand grip his shoulder.

“Guillermo, you are still wearing the crucifix I gave you, yes?”

Guillermo nodded. Underneath the thin fabric of his button-up shirt rested the silver cross. Truthfully, it had soothed many of his anxieties about living in the house as he adjusted to being the only creature there with an actual heartbeat.

Nandor visibly relaxed, his grip on Guillermo’s shoulder loosening. “Good. Never take it off.”

“I won’t.”

Stepping back, Nandor grabbed the doorknob, flashing his teeth in a scowl. “When you’re done in here, come to my room. There are a few more rules we need to discuss.”

“Yes, Master.”

The door closed with a click, leaving Guillermo more confused than anything else. Why did Nandor come barging in and then leave just as quickly? Vampires really didn’t understand personal space, he surmised with a sigh, turning back to look in the mirror.

“Oh, and Guillermo?” Nandor called out from behind the closed door, voice muffled. The suddenness of the vampire’s voice makes Guillermo startle in surprise yet again, just barely biting back a curse in Spanish. “Make sure you put a band-aid on that cut. You wouldn’t want it getting infected. That would be very unhygienic.”

It was only then that Guillermo noticed the cut on his neck, the wound having dripped a red line down his throat and onto the collar of his white button-up.


	9. Relentless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events at the theatre, Guillermo returns to the Staten Island house as a roommate and occasional bodyguard for the vampires. One night, Nandor falls for a trap set by the Vampiric Council and Guillermo pays the price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a day late but better than never, right lol? anyway, ty for all the encouragement so far!! i'm working on ch.10 now & will hopefully be able to make this a double-update day so i'll be back on schedule. i also plan to respond to comments either tonight or tomorrow morning... so yes! without further ado, hope u guys like some angst ;3c
> 
> tw for snakes & blood drinking

.

.

_You are a promise of brightness  
The triumph of life over self-hate  
 **But I take all you gave for granted  
What really matters I keep breaking  
**  
I'm turning horizons into battlegrounds  
I cannot walk ahead without your guidance  
  
Can I hold on? Can I hold onto you?  
Can I hold on? Can I hold onto you?_

-Horizons Into Battlegrounds, Woodkid

**

It’s all Nandor’s fault, really.

He knows he should be careful—Guillermo had told him as much multiple times in the wake of the theatre incident—but his love for animals was truly a slippery slope of gullibility for him.

The little green snake perched on one of the limbs of Laszlo’s apple tree was very cute, and yes, he vaguely knew that snakes weren’t supposed to be able to blink or talk, but Nandor had been feeling a bit lonely lately now that Guillermo was no longer officially his familiar. No longer did he have an excuse to make the human stay with him, to linger in every room as he traipsed about the house. The amount of times where he had almost started a conversation, assuming Guillermo was at his side, only to realize that the man was somewhere else, was an embarrassingly high number.

Regardless, Nandor began to chat with the snake. Complimented its bright scales and piercing yellow eyes. He is distantly aware of the sound of someone running towards him, but he pays it little mind.

“Nandor, move!” Guillermo yells, suddenly shoving the vampire to the side.

Before Nandor can even react, the snake leaps forward, digging its fangs into the side of Guillermo’s throat. With a cry of pain, Guillermo rips the snake away from his neck, brown eyes narrowed in rage.

“ _Slayer…”_ the vampire-snake whispers menacingly just before Guillermo beheads it with the sharpened point of a stake.

All at once, the human drops the stake, letting it roll onto the ground.

“Guillermo?” Nandor asks with obvious concern. The man was looking incredibly pale and Nandor could hear a strange sort of wheezing noise every time he took a breath.

“I-I don’t feel… so good,” Guillermo admits, vision swimming. It’s only thanks to his vampiric reflexes that Nandor is able to catch Guillermo before he passes out. In one fluid movement he has the man cradled in his arms, noticing now that something smelled wrong about Guillermo. It reminded him vaguely of the smell of infected blood, but it was much more acute.

Panic flooded through him as he attempted to stir Guillermo awake, rubbing a thumb gently against his cheek. “Guillermo? Guillermo, you must wake now. I know you are no longer my familiar so I am not allowed to order you around anymore, but _please_ , you’re scaring me.”

With a groan, Guillermo slowly opened his eyes, gaze bleary and unfocused. “Nandor…? I-I feel so tired. I can barely keep my eyes open…”

“No, don’t sleep just yet,” Nandor urged, bringing the man back into the house. He laid Guillermo onto the chaise lounge in the library before frantically yelling for his housemates. His mind was a wildfire of conflicting thoughts and emotions as he continued to listen to the human’s failing vitals, unable to do anything other than squeeze Guillermo’s hand in sympathy whenever a particularly pained whimper escaped his lips.

Once everyone arrived, Nandor quickly explained what had happened to Guillermo. Nadja is the first to react.

“I’ve seen this before,” Nadja says sternly, pointing a finger at Nandor. “You big bloody donkey, you’ve gotten our human bodyguard bitten by a vampire-snake! Their saliva in that form is naturally venomous. Guillermo did not get to drink that vampire’s blood before he killed it, did he?”

Nandor shook his head.

“Then I am sorry, but he is doomed. The venom will kill him unless one of us bites him and turns him ourselves.”

“Well?” Laszlo snaps, interrupting the pair. “Nandor, it sounds to me like you need to either turn him or put him out of his misery.”

“What about an ambulance?” Nandor asks, desperation evident in his tone.

Nadja shifts uncomfortably. It is only then that Nandor recalls that Nadja was turned by a vampire masquerading as a snake—seeing Guillermo like this, cold and pale, covered in a thin layer of sweat as his body fights a losing battle to the venom coursing through his veins was likely more traumatic than she would ever admit aloud. “I doubt they have an antidote for vampire-snake venom,” she says in a quiet voice, purposefully looking away from Guillermo.

“Nandor,” Colin Robinson interjects, placing a steadying hand to the man’s shoulder. For once, Nandor doesn’t try to pull away. “You need to hurry. Otherwise, Guillermo will become fertilizer for Laszlo’s apple trees.”

Taking a deep, unnecessary breath, Nandor rises to his feet to loom over the human, a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

“Guillermo?” Nandor asks, hesitant. He is only vaguely aware that the three vampires had left the room to give him his privacy. He clenches his fists into his cape, a nervous habit that helped sooth him whenever he felt out of his element, which was often in the 21st century. “You trust me, yes?”

The man nods almost imperceptibly, head rolling to reveal the unmarred side of his neck as he closed his eyes. The action, the implicit show of trust, makes something in Nandor’s chest tighten—it’s an unfamiliar feeling, one that he can’t properly name. He has to bite his tongue to keep from asking Guillermo what emotion he was feeling.

He’s acutely aware of the seconds now, time trickling through a cracked hourglass, pouring over him in an avalanche of regret. The realization that Guillermo is dying almost brings tears to his eyes, the stinging ache settling just behind his eyelids. How many nights had he taken Guillermo’s presence for granted? Why had he been so naïve to think that Guillermo would always be around? He was a human—a mortal, fragile man whose ancestor was the most powerful vampire hunter to have ever walked the earth, and he had somehow weaseled his way into Nandor’s otherwise lonely existence. But now that Guillermo was here, Nandor refused to let him go.

Despite the venom that soured his otherwise intoxicating scent, Nandor feels his jaw begin to ache, fangs lengthening at the thought of the warm blood coursing just underneath the surface. He leans in, listening intently to the strong, steady heartbeat within Guillermo’s chest, and knows what he must do. It doesn’t make the decision any easier.

“Everything will be alright, Guillermo,” he murmurs, gathering the man into his arms. Gently, he presses his lips to the fluttering pulse at his ex-familiar’s throat, giving himself a few more moments to listen to the rhythmic sound that had been at his side for over eleven years. When Guillermo lets out a pained moan, fingers digging reflexively into the fabric of Nandor’s brocade, the vampire strikes.

Fangs sink into flesh as Nandor’s grip tightens, anchoring the human to his chest. Guillermo melts immediately into the hold, completely at ease despite his vampire hunter ancestry. Nandor half expects a crucifix to be flung at him or a stake to be pushed into his side. When neither happens, it dawns on Nandor that Guillermo is likely suppressing his instincts.

Nandor drinks, counting each mouthful of warm, delicious blood carefully as he does so. The venom does little to detract from the taste of Guillermo’s blood, every draught diluting the sourness until there is nothing but sweet, clean blood pouring down his throat.

**

Guillermo lurches forward with a gasp, hand automatically flying up to his throat. He feels gauze underneath his fingertips and stills, head swimming. He could tell he was in his new bedroom—the big blue room, as Nandor called it—thanks to the candles on his beside table. He settles up against the headboard, pulling the covers up as he does so, letting out a long, tired sigh.

So it hadn’t been a dream. But, before he can even start to replay the night’s events, something in the room shifts.

He had seen Nandor turn into many things—from the stereotypical bat that most vampires seemed to gravitate towards for ease of travel, to a dog, and even into a rolling mist—but rarely did the vampire choose to become the very shadows themselves. If he squinted, Guillermo could see the barest indication of movement in the darkness, as if the shadow itself was a pulsing, living thing that hovered just beyond the candlelight. Like an oil-slick, the shadow poured across the floorboards, creeping silently towards the door as the temperature in the room plummeted.

He wondered briefly if Nandor was trying to leave the room unseen. Perhaps he didn’t want Guillermo or his other housemates to know that he had stayed in the room with him while he slept.

“Nandor,” Guillermo called out tiredly. “Can you stop manipulating the shadows and just tell me what the Hell is going on? _Please?_ ”

Guillermo swears he hears something like a huff as the vaguely person-shaped void obeys, the dark parting to reveal a familiar, scowling vampire. Nandor sat on the edge of Guillermo’s bed, dressed in only a thin white blouse and dark trousers.

He crossed his legs before pointing an accusatory finger towards Guillermo. “I was trying to be sneaky and you ruined it with your vampire hunter senses!”

When Guillermo doesn’t do anything more than groan in frustration, Nandor continues on. “So, how are you feeling? You lost a lot of blood.”

The vampire flashes his teeth, which, thankfully, are not still stained with Guillermo’s blood. “But I was careful! I only took as much as needed to get the venom out of your body.”

At his words, Guillermo feels a sudden wave of anger. Even at the point of almost certain death, Nandor had somehow managed to weasel his way out of turning him. It’s a childish impulse, and he knows logically he should be grateful that Nandor had saved his life, but he still reaches over to throw a pillow at the vampire’s face all the same. The movement catches Nandor off-guard and he lets out an indignant squawk as the pillow hits him squarely in the jaw.

“I sucked the poison out of you and this is the thanks I get?” Nandor grumbles, clutching the pillow to his chest. “Fucking guy…”

“Why didn’t you just turn me?”

Nandor blinks. He tilts his head, looking at Guillermo as if he had suddenly grown another head. “I was not aware that you still wanted that. You’re a descendant of vampire killers. Why would you still want to become a vampire now that you have all this power?”

It’s a fair question. Guillermo curses in frustration, falling back against the bed. “I don’t know why, honestly. I just always thought that it was my destiny.” he lets out a shaky, bitter laugh. “But no. Of fucking course I was wrong.”

Nandor rises suddenly from the bed, stretching out his ancient limbs. Guillermo expects the vampire to throw the pillow at his face or to simply carry it off with him to his coffin. Instead, Nandor approaches, dark eyes radiating a subtle sort of affection.

“You were not wrong,” Nandor assures, placing the pillow underneath Guillermo’s head. There is a profound gentleness to his actions, down to the way that he fusses with fluffing the pillow with one hand while he cups the back of Guillermo’s neck with the other. His cold fingers trail against the gauze at his throat before he pulls away, letting the human sink into the pillow. “I made a promise, didn’t I? You will become a vampire if that is what you truly wish. Just… give me a little more time. Let me get used to you being a vampire slayer before you become an undead creature of the night.”

Guillermo nods, exhaustion finally creeping back into his veins. Any residual anger melts away as he curls on his side, eyes flickering closed. He falls asleep just as Nandor blows out the candles, unaware of the hand that later tugs the covers farther up his frame.


	10. Updog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin Robinson is somehow roped into babysitting for one of his human coworkers.

.

.

The toddler is adorable. It’s an undeniable fact—it’s like saying the sky is blue or that blood-drinking vampires turn to ash in the sun. And, fortunately for Colin, toddlers are a great source of energy. Or, rather, they have a monopoly on making adults miserable. All Colin had to do was be in the room with the kid and he would have an immediate energy supply. His stomach rumbles at the thought.

“Please don’t turn my coworker’s kid into a vampire,” Colin says to Laszlo the moment the toddler is dropped off, a rubber-duck embroidered bag full of toiletries and supplies slung over his left shoulder. The human, a girl named Rosemary (yes, her parents were _those_ kind of parents), entered the foyer with a carefree giggle. It seemed she had little to no fear of strangers.

“Hally-ween!” she squeals, immediately running for a taxidermy coyote head that Guillermo was in the midst of mounting on the wall.

The ex-familiar just barely manages to catch her before her hands touch the coyote’s muzzle.

“Careful there, Rosemary,” Guillermo chides softly, reluctantly putting the girl back on her feet. For good measure, he steps in front of the coyote, hiding it behind his legs.

“Here,” Nadja says, holding out the stuffed animal that Rosemary had dropped. It looked to be a handmade plushy of a bat, one of the wings a little bit larger than the other. “Trust me, little one, you do not want to touch any of the taxidermy animals here. My husband is… very gross.”

Rosemary took the toy with a laugh. It was clear that she barely understood what Nadja had said.

“I heard that,” Laszlo quipped. He then nodded at the toddler. “She is right, though. It would be best if you asked us before you touched anything in the house.”

“Seriously, guys? Have any of you ever interacted with a toddler before?” Guillermo near hissed.

Nandor, who had been silent up until this point, approached the group with a vaguely melancholy smile. “Are you forgetting that I had fathered plenty of children before I was turned?”

Nadja grimaced. “Nandor, you can barely put your clothes on by yourself now that Guillermo is no longer your familiar. So excuse me if I find it hard to believe you fathered anything that wasn’t secretly a rock in disguise.”

“Nadja, that is not fair to say! You know that my boots are difficult to put on and off!”

“Okay, I can agree to that. But you still need to explain to me why you were wearing your billowy blouse inside-out yesterday.”

Before Nandor could respond, Rosemary was already teetering towards him, obviously entranced by the shiny ring on his index finger. Hesitantly, Nandor crouched down, lips pulled into something like a grimace. While it was true that he was the only vampire in the house that had been an actual father, most of his children had been quite young when he became a vampire.

They had been scared of him, back then—which was fair, considering he was a floating vampire at their window. But it had hurt a lot more than he would ever admit, seeing his kids who had the same colored hair, the same dark eyes, the same aquiline nose, cowering in fear when all he wanted to do was hold them in his arms like he had done before he became a vampire.

The toddler held out her stuffed bat expectantly. If she was afraid of Nandor, she made no outward show of it.

“Oh, you wish to trade?” Nandor asked, glancing at his ring and then at the little bat.

Rosemary nodded excitedly.

“Very well. Here you are,” he placed the ring gently in the child’s upturned palm before taking the stuffed bat. “Now what is this fearsome creature’s name?”

“Baty!” Rosemary chirped, studying the ring with a great deal of focus for a three-year old. She held it between her palms, rubbed the gem with her thumb, squinted at the inscription underneath the band of the ring, which was etched in Farsi, before finally trying to put it on her finger. It was much too big, of course, but she giggled all the same as she spun it around her index finger.

Nandor couldn’t help but smile. “That is a perfect name for him since he is very cool and scary.”

To his surprise, the girl waddled closer to him, arms outstretched. He was frozen for a moment, transported back to the final time he got to hug his children. It had been right before his last battle as a human, before he and his army got stranded in the mountains after a particularly vicious battle. When he finally hugs back, he realizes he’s actually trembling.

Apparently he wasn’t coping with how he left his human life as well as he thought he was.

Laszlo’s eyes widened. “Bloody hell, are you crying, Nandor?”

The vampire sniffled, rubbing at his eyes with his cloak. “N-no! You are the one crying! I am definitely not crying!”

**

“Bye-bye!” The girl crowed, waving her hands wildly. It was clear that she wanted to say goodbye to each person individually despite her parents’ obvious desire to go home. The vampires and vampire hunter all waited patiently in a line of sorts as Rosemary gave them all hugs. “Bye-bye, Mister Colin! Bye-bye, Miss Nadja! Bye-bye, Mister Laszlo! Bye-bye, Gigi! Bye-bye, Nan-Nan! And bye-bye, Mister Tax-and-Dermin Coyote!”

If her parents found the last name to be a bit weird, they hid it well. As soon as the door closed behind them, the house fell into a dejected silence. It was clear that they all missed Rosemary to some extent.

“You know what I think might cheer us all up?” Colin Robinson began, much to the chagrin of his housemates. “I think we should go and get some updog!”

At his words, everyone hissed, including Guillermo.

He shrugged, unbothered. “Well, it was worth a shot…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this was short; i lost steam midway thru this prompt but hopefully what i did get written down wasn’t, well, the worst lmao 
> 
> also need more of nandor interacting w/ kids since he canonly is a father & i'm sure has a lot of emotional hang-ups on not having been able to really raise his kids or assumedly watch them grow up since he was run out of al quolanudar ;v;


	11. Energy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin Robinson attempts to leech off an argument between Nandor and Guillermo.

.

.

“Oh, the best part of having housemates?” Colin Robinson addressed the cameras with a familiar grin, eyes flashing blue behind his glasses. “It’s an all you can eat buffet every day! Preying on my coworkers is great and all, but there’s nothing quite like siphoning energy from other vampires. They’re always like ‘ _ooh, I’m a vampire. I’m a blood-drinking creature of the night. I’m immortal.’_ Well, okay, sure, but you’re still not immune to the old Colinator. Or the sun.

“Speaking of which, I’ve really been enjoying feeding off all the tension in the house now that Guillermo is back. Everyone else is avoiding the big ol’ elephant in the room but not me.” Collin chuckles, waggling a finger. “I, for one, love asking Guillermo if he’s itching to kill any of us.”

There’s a pause. “Oh, do I think he would actually kill us? No, not really. Well, he might kill Laszlo, but that's it."

**

Colin Robinson hovered outside Nandor’s crypt, peeking through the slight gap between the door and the doorframe. He didn’t want to be spotted just yet—not when Nandor and Guillermo were already in the midst of an argument that the energy vampire could gleefully leech energy from.

“Guillermo, I think I have been very understanding and forgiving about all your vampire hunter nonsense, but this is where I draw the line!” Nandor stomped his foot for emphasis, folding his arms. “You almost killed Laszlo tonight!”

The human sat on the wooden stool, a somber expression on his face. It reminded Colin of a puppy in the midst of being scolded. “I didn’t mean to… you know how Laszlo is. He keeps pushing and pushing and, well, he just went too far this time.”

“What was it that he said that got you so worked up?”

Guillermo’s shoulders sagged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Can we talk about something else? Please?”

True to his moniker, Nandor shook his head, lips pulled into a thin line. “Guillermo, you threw a stake at Laszlo while he was in bat form. I think it’s only fair that you tell me what preceded this since _your_ stake stabbed me in the hand. I only barely managed to intercept it in time!”

Guillermo visibly shuddered at that. “I’m sorry, Nandor. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

“But you meant to kill Laszlo?”

“…At that moment, yes.”

With a sigh, Nandor reached forward, gaze unreadable. For the first time that Colin could recall since Guillermo first started as a familiar, the human flinched. It wasn’t like the energy vampire paid too much attention to Guillermo, but he had noticed how at ease Guillermo was in the presence of Nandor compared to any of the other vampires in the house. Simply put, there was always a shift in energy—Colin couldn’t sense any of the usual anxiety or fear that normally followed Guillermo like a shadow when he was only in Nandor’s presence. It _almost_ made him feel bad every time he interrupted them for a quick bite… _almost_.

Colin leaned in closer, something dangerously close to concern fluttering in his chest. He grimaced at the feeling. Emotions like concern or empathy always made him feel like he was eating himself.

Nandor quickly brought his hand back to his chest as if he’d been burned. “Guillermo, I’m not going to hurt you. I am angry, yes, but you are not in any danger.”

“But you said it yourself—I almost killed Laszlo. I wanted to. It would make sense if you wanted me gone.” Guillermo gave a bitter, hollow chuckle. “I can’t believe I thought I could come back. You guys can call me your bodyguard all you want, but I think I’m more of a danger than the Council is.”

“Do I think you are stronger and more capable than any assassin the Council could bring our way? Yes. We all saw how you slaughtered the vampires at the theatre. But I also…” Nandor paused, grimacing in a way that Colin recognized as meaning he was about to say something that hinted at his emotional state—his energy always sang with frustration then. “…Trust you. _Eughh._ Please don’t make me say that again.”

Guillermo’s cheeks flushed as he fumbled for a response. “T-thank you—I mean, I trust you too. I just… I don’t know—sometimes, I feel like I can’t trust myself.”

Nandor’s gaze softened. “You will, in time. You just need to give yourself time to adjust to your new urges. For me, it was learning not to bite into every yummy-looking neck I saw. It took time, but now I rarely lose control! I am sure you will learn to stop throwing stakes at us whenever we accidentally spook you.”

With how mushy their conversation was getting, Colin couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose _. So much for an easy meal_ , he thought sullenly, drifting off to go find Laszlo and Nadja. Maybe he could convince them to try singing at another open-mic night.

**

The thing about being an energy vampire, at least in Colin’s opinion, was that to stay well fed without killing people, you needed to be able to understand others. If anyone were to bother to look through the books and articles tucked inside his file cabinet, they would see that he was actually fairly well read. Most of the books were on psychology, anthropology, or sociology. He even had a few on politics, but those were really just used to rile up his coworkers or strangers on the bus.

Regardless, there was a specific reason that Nandor and Guillermo were his favorite people in the house to leech energy from.

“You see,” Colin explained to the cameras, sitting casually on his bed. “They’ve got a particular taste to them. It’s refreshing. Like drinking a glass of lemonade. It’s their whole ‘ _will they, won’t they’_ shtick that keeps me well fed. You know when you have two friends in a friend group that very obviously like each other but neither will admit to it? That’s Nandor and Guillermo.

“Nandor would never admit to having romantic feelings—at least not directly. But he definitely shows it. Remember when Guillermo left the second time and the whole house went to shit? That was on Nandor. He likes the place tidy and will put effort into cleaning if he absolutely has to, like when his old familiar came back for a bit, but he was so upset over Guillermo leaving that he barely left his crypt.

“As for Guillermo? I mean it’s pretty obvious. No one would put up with half the stuff Nandor put him through for eleven years. If he just wanted to be a vampire, he could definitely have found another way. But I think the little guy fell for Nandor pretty early on. What’s that one quote about love? Love demands sacrifice? Or some shit like that. Either way, Guillermo’s got it bad—and now we have this added layer of him being a descendant of Van Helsing… it’s an absolute feast of conflicting emotions for me.”

There’s a pause as the energy vampire rifles through his file cabinet, fishing out a plain spiral notebook. He flips it open, revealing a long list of interactions between the housemates.

“You guys know how I love making lists, right? Well, here’s a list I’ve made of sexual tension between the vampires. As you can see, Nandor and Guillermo are winning. Yeah… they have more tally-marks than the actual romantically involved couple in the house—but in their defense, Nadja and Laszlo don’t give a fuck if we’re in the room when they want to get intimate. So there’s a lot less sexual tension for them and more just, well, actual sex.”

The director poses another question.

“Oh, I do actually want them to get together eventually. They are my friends, at the end of the day. And I think they deserve to be happy.” Colin chuckles. “Not too happy, though. I still need to eat. But I’m sure that I’ll get even more energy once they become an item… they don’t call me _Colin the cock-blocker_ for nothing, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay for a double update!! i am now back to being caught up... for now ^^; 
> 
> also, had another galaxy brain idea:
> 
> bc colin is an energy vamp & is probably pretty good at reading ppl, especially his housemates, then i could totally see him having lists related to the interactions btwn the staten island crew. it helps him decide who he should try and feed on for the week & also what buttons he can push to get more energy from everyone lol. really expecting him to flat-out say that he knew guillermo was a vampire hunter in s3 bc he's 1) not oblivious & 2) noticed a change in his energy... aka anxiety™ to the max


	12. Drug Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadja, Laszlo, and Nandor go out on the town again for the first time after the events at the theatre and get absolutely messed up on drug blood. Guillermo is surprised to find that they are more than ready this time to rope him into their shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this turned out really soft & i’m super proud of it given my time constraints on writing these pieces (~1-2 hrs per chapter). anyway, it’s another chap focusing on the nadja/laszlo/nandor dynamic & nandor/guillermo, of course :D 
> 
> hope y’all enjoy <333

.

.

The three vampires rush in, bringing in the winter cold with them. All loose-limbed and affectionate, they nearly collapse in a fit of giggles in the foyer, passing a pink bedazzled cowboy hat between each other.

“Guillermo!” Nandor crows upon seeing his ex-familiar. “We missed you!”

The vampire untangles himself from his housemates before quickly dissolving into a vapor, grey tendrils of smoke crawling over the floorboards and slithering towards Guillermo.

“Nandor, what are you—“

Guillermo, who had been sitting comfortably in one of the armchairs near the stairwell, scrambled to throw the vampire hunting equipment out of his lap just before the dense fog enveloped him. In the blink of an eye, the vapor became solid and vampire-shaped, eliciting a pained groan from Guillermo. Nandor casually looped his arms around Guillermo’s shoulders, nuzzling into the man’s neck with a pleased sigh, legs thrown over the side of the armchair. 

“Your heart is beating so fast. It sounds like a little beaver is building a dam in your chest,” the vampire mumbles contentedly, lips pressing absentmindedly against the warm skin of Guillermo’s throat.

It’s so close to a kiss that Guillermo feels himself getting dizzy, face growing hot. He knew how affectionate all the vampires got when under the influence of drug blood, but this was the first time they had gotten properly wasted since the theatre incident. He had expected that they would all rather keep their distance now that they knew about his Van Helsing heritage.

Somehow, it seemed that the exact opposite was true.

Nadja gave a pout, the bedazzled cowboy hat on her head catching the light of the candles as she stamped her foot. “Nandor, stop hogging Guillermo! He is our friend too, you know.”

Laszlo gave a mischievous grin. “I think this calls for a bat-pile.”

“Oh, not you guys too!” Guillermo panicked, attempting in vain to push himself out of the chair to no avail; Nandor’s weight against him was like a heavy anchor, keeping him snugly in place as the two other vampires approached.

Nadja gave a worryingly delighted cackle before launching herself at the pair. She managed to land much more elegantly than Nandor did, thankfully deciding to perch on top of the same arm of the chair that Nandor’s legs were splayed over, her heels kicking him purposefully in the shin.

 _“Ouch! Nadja!”_ Nandor hissed, pulling away from Guillermo to give Nadja an incredulous look, mouth agape.

The vampire merely raised a brow, gaze drifting to her manicured nails in disinterest. “It was an accident.”

“It was not!”

“Incoming!” Laszlo interrupted, sandwiching himself between Nandor and Nadja—which meant that he ended up sitting directly over Nandor’s thighs, one arm slung behind Guillermo’s neck while the other arm drifted to Nadja’s waist, tugging her closer.

Guillermo let out a yelp of pain at the added weight, confusion settling at the unfamiliar feeling of Laszlo’s arm around him. He knew he was slowly becoming something akin to friends with Laszlo, but he never expected the vampire to be this lax when it came to physical touch. Well, actually, now that Guillermo thought about it, maybe it wasn’t all that surprising...

It was at that point that Colin emerged from the basement, confusion evident on his face.

“Are you guys trying to smother Guillermo or something?”

Nadja waved her hand. “Come join us, Colin Robinson! We are doing the bat-pile!”

The energy vampire shuddered at the thought. “No thanks. I’m gonna go back to watching the documentary on the evolution of the printing press. Later, dudes! Oh, and try not to kill Gizmo. He’s the only other person contributing to the rent here.”

**

“N-Nandor, come on,” Guillermo pleaded, unable to pull away from the vampire’s vice-like grip. “It’s time for coffin.”

“Noooo,” Nandor whined, clinging tighter to the human’s arm as he sat up in his coffin suddenly, the action nearly toppling the other man inside. “I don’t want you to go! What if you leave again once I am slumbering?”

“The sun’s coming up any minute now,” Guillermo replied, taking a nervous glance at the hastily drawn curtains in the crypt. “Please, I don’t want you to get hurt. Just let me close the coffin.”

At his words, the vampire stilled, grip loosening completely. Tears began to well in his eyes.

 _Fuck,_ Guillermo cursed to himself, holding his hands up in a placating manner. “H-hey, it’s okay. I wouldn’t let you get burned by the sun. And I’m not going anywhere. I promise."

Nandor sniffled loudly, voice soft but hopeful. “Then, do you think… we could have a sleepover? Like in Twilight?”

Guillermo was nodding along before the question even registered, wanting nothing more than to get Nandor to sleep so he could go to sleep as well. “Wait, there was a sleepover scene in Twilight?”

It was at that moment that Nadja and Laszlo burst into Nandor’s crypt, both carrying pillows… and Nadja also worryingly had her favorite skull cradled against her chest. Both vampires were clearly dressed for sleep.

“Did we hear something about a sleepover, old chap?” Laszlo asked, raising an eyebrow salaciously.

“We were planning to come here regardless,” Nadja admitted. “But it is nice to think we are all on the same page.”

With thinly veiled fondness, Nandor gave a huff, angling himself further back into his coffin. He stretched out his arms expectantly. “Well? Any time in the next century _please._ "

The pair drifted over, their motions surprisingly swift and elegant as they slipped underneath Nandor’s arms, mirroring each other. Nadja was pressed to the left of Nandor, the pillow she brought cushioning her upper back and head. Laszlo, pressed to the right of Nandor and closest to the hinges of the coffin, pressed his pillow to cushion just his back, head already curled against Nandor’s shoulder. Stuck tightly between the pair, Nandor made no complaints, fingers rubbing comforting circles against Nadja and Laszlo's upper arms. And though it was a rather cramped fit, all three vampires looked equally content. 

It became exceedingly obvious to Guillermo that this wasn’t the first time that the trio had shared a coffin. His heart drummed with affection at the thought. It wasn’t a secret how lonely Nandor was, how often his thoughts circled an unimaginable well of sadness, how easily he lost sight of the present or future, moored stubbornly to the past, to the man he could no longer be, to places and people he could no longer return to.

For centuries he had drifted untethered, a vagabond roaming from city to city, listless in the way that all vampires are without a coven of their own. But then he had met Nadja and Laszlo and something had just made sense—they were an odd group of vampires, more likely to bicker and fight than ever admit the depths of how they all felt for each other, but their history could not be ignored. Despite being immortal and practically having the entire world at their fingertips, they had chosen each other. They chose to make a home in Staten Island, to plant roots for as long as they could here in a city that wasn’t particularly special or unique aside from the fact that it was where their ship had dropped them off long ago.

Guillermo could see it, just how much Nadja and Laszlo meant to Nandor. Likewise, he had his suspicions that Nadja and Laszlo also cared for Nandor in much the same way. 

“Guillermo?” Nandor murmured, voice thick with sleep. “You are not a vampire, so it would not be good for you to sleep in a coffin. That would be too macabre. You may sleep on the chaise lounge instead—I think there are some furs there you can use to warm up your weak little human body.”

By now, Guillermo was able to tell when Nandor was genuinely trying to insult him versus simply stating a fact—or at least something he considered to be a fact as a vampire. “Okay. I’ll sleep here.”

“Great… good night, Guillermo.”

“Good night, Guillermo. I hope you have many terrific nightmares,” Nadja cooed, fingers curling absentmindedly in Nandor’s hair before drifting to cover the area right above the vampire’s heart.

“Yes, yes, good night, Gizmo,” Laszlo mumbled, waving a hand dismissively, face half-obscured by a curtain of dark hair as he shifted closer to Nandor. He then placed his hand over Nadja’s, their fingers intertwining.

Guillermo, after doing one last curtain check and blowing out all the candles, settled into the chaise lounge, throwing a collection of furs over himself. Feeling more at peace than he had in a long time, Guillermo slept. It was the first time since learning about his heritage that he did not feel the compulsion to sleep with a stake underneath his pillow despite being in the company of three vampires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would love to see nadja & laszlo warm up to guillermo more as the series progresses—perhaps even going so far as to call him their friend when they aren’t high on drug blood lol but i’ll take what i can get
> 
> also vampire headcanon fun: it's instinctive for vampires to shield their heart/hearts of those they care for when they sleep since it's where they are most vulnerable ;3; hence why nadja & laszlo do that for nandor...


	13. Creepy Paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo and Nandor go on an errand run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eep i'm still behind but hopefully i'll catch up by the end of the week ^^; 
> 
> also p.s. i am so sorry for how many times i had to write DILF in this chapter because of the dialogue askdjfsdf

.

.

You would think that after over eleven years, Guillermo would be used to the odd stares whenever he went out with Nandor on errands.

But tonight is no different. The grocery store is fortunately sparse, only a few other shoppers bustling down the rows. Guillermo had learned long ago to ignore the few braver souls who attempted to take a picture or video of the pair, silently praying that they wouldn’t end up going viral on, like, TikTok or something. That would be a nightmare for him and too much of an ego stroke for the vampires.

Guillermo had just tossed a loaf of bread in the cart before he shivered, gooseflesh rising over his arms and the nape of his neck. He bristled instinctively, hands digging deep into the pocket of his coat for the stake he kept on his person at all times. It was only when Nandor began to speak in his ear that the vampire hunter visibly relaxed, shoulders lowering. He hadn’t realized the implication until after he learned of his ancestry, but he’s always had the uncanny ability to be able to tell whenever one of the vampires was nearby—it was like walking into a cold spot within a room. Where there should have been heat, there was only a frigid chill. An absence of warmth so sudden and jarring that it immediately clued him in that there was a vampire nearby.

“Guillermo, what is this?”

Guillermo turned around and sighed. “It’s a sponge. For cleaning the dishes.”

“But it is in the shape of a smiley-face! What purpose does that serve? And why is it called a _Sponge-Daddy?_ Is it a sponge for DILFs?”

Guillermo spluttered, face reddening. “Where—where did you even learn that phrase? Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know. Anyway, the shape of the sponge is just for fun. And anyone can use the sponge… not just, uh, DILFs.”

Inwardly, he was trying not to think about how Nandor was technically a DILF—a seven hundred and fifty eight year old undead DILF, but a DILF nevertheless.

Nandor’s eyes widened at the information. “Are there humans that enjoy washing the dishes? I find it to be very messy and tiresome.”

“...That’s because you all leave blood to dry in your goblets instead of soaking them,” Guillermo mutters to himself, reaching on his tiptoes for a jar of peanut butter on the upmost shelf.

“Here,” Nandor said, reaching over Guillermo’s head to pluck the jar off the shelf. He handed it over wordlessly.

“Thanks.”

Nandor nodded. It was then that he turned to peer curiously at the elderly woman who was sharing the same aisle, her cane clacking loudly against the linoleum floors. It seemed she too was having issues grabbing an item from the top shelf: a box of pancake mix. Her hands were just barely skimming the box’s edge, fingers spasming at the effort.

Quick as a viper, Nandor was at the woman’s side. “Excuse me, do you need help reaching that box of... human sustenance?”

The woman startled somewhat, but thankfully recovered. Guillermo did not want a repeat of the incident with Madeline.

Her face brightened instantly as she took in Nandor’s imposing figure, apparently unperturbed by his odd manner of dress. “Why yes I do, young man! My hands just aren’t cooperating with me today.”

Grabbing the pancake mix, Nandor proceeded to place it gently within the small shopping cart. His gaze rested on the cane, the slight swaying of her frame, the way her smile, while genuine, seemed buried under a thin layer of discomfort.

“You have been in pain for a long time now, haven’t you?” he questioned, dark eyes lidded with something like understanding.

The elderly woman was silent for a long moment, expression unreadable. Eventually, she placed a trembling hand upon Nandor’s forearm, touch gentle and reassuring. The spark of wisdom in her eyes seemed ancient and well beyond her meager human lifespan; it humbled Nandor, in a way.

“If you are able to recognize it, then I can only imagine that you also carry this weight with you. I used to be so good at hiding it when I was young. Still, I wish I had gotten used to it by now—all the ways a body can betray you. Growing old is a beautiful, agonizing process, but something I hope you will live to experience one day as well. Don’t give up, young man. Simply existing is a rare and miraculous thing.”

“It truly is,” Nandor murmured, voice thick with grief. Vampires were, in the end, the remnants of people who refused to die—people who would not lie silently in their graves even as they were covered in burial dirt. He knew very well just how easy it was for life to slip past you, to watch it fade with the setting sun, a sea of war banners crumbling to ash in a pit of flames. As proud and content as he was with being a vampire, there were still parts of his human life that he wished he could return to—things he wished he could finally set right. “You are a wise, wise woman.”

Before the elderly woman could reply, the vampire waved his hand in front of her face, a rare softness overtaking his features. “After your shopping you will go home and you will not feel any pain, at least for tonight. You will have a full, restful slumber and you will forget that we were ever speaking.”

Though Guillermo knew Nandor’s track record for hypnosis was poor, it seemed that his words did the trick this time. The elderly woman soon shuffled off, looking much more at peace than she did a few minutes prior.

“So how exactly could you tell she was in pain?” Guillermo asked once the woman was out of earshot. Their conversation hadn’t made much sense to Guillermo—after all, he had been under the assumption that vampires were free from pain. Or, at least, chronic pain. Any wound not made from religious objects, silver, or wood would heal, the tissue knitting itself back together over bone, and the vampire would be whole again.

But maybe that wasn’t how it worked. Perhaps wounds sustained before they were turned would remain, inescapable even in the dark embrace of immortality. Over eleven years at Nandor’s side and Guillermo was still completely unaware of certain facets of the man’s life before he became a vampire.

“It is the way she is carrying herself—like there is a sword stuck in her body. All warriors are familiar with it. You do not survive the battlefield without collecting an assortment of aches and pains. I learned long ago that only way to live with pain is to make a home for it somewhere inside you. To accept the pain and the limitations it may bring, but to never let it rule over you.”

“Wow... that was beautiful.” Guillermo replied, stunned. “Like… actually really poetic.”

Nandor glared, baring his fangs. “What, did you think I just pillaged all day? If I was not on the battlefield, you could find me in my tent either preparing for the next battle or reading. I had a servant that rode to each encampment with me; their job was to hold and protect my books with their life.”

With a huff, the vampire turned on his heel, stomping further down the aisle.

Guillermo paused, watching Nandor’s cape flutter behind him. Somehow, it felt like he understood the vampire a little bit better now. With a fond sigh, Guillermo followed after Nandor into another aisle—and almost ran immediately into his back.

Nandor had paused dead center in the next aisle. He whipped around, giving Guillermo an open, curious look. “Which aisle is the creepy paper in again?”

“…I’ll show you,” Guillermo replied, smiling despite the butchering pronunciation of _crepe paper_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was having thoughts abt whether vampires are capable of experiencing chronic pain... i think they would tbh. throwing in my two cents, pain is an offshoot of somatosensation—our sense of touch. the gate theory of pain proposes that we are equipped with inhibitory neurons whose main job is to “gate” pain sensation. so a nociceptive (“pain”) signal is either let though the gate to elicit a pain/inflammation response or it isn’t, meaning the gate is closed, not allowing for the signal to travel to its destination within the central nervous system. this is obviously a simplification as this is still a bustling field of research, but yeah... i’m personally obligated to make at least one neuro comment per fic to keep my grad degree lol
> 
> tldr; vampires can feel pain—ergo, they can still experience chronic pain symptoms.
> 
> also abt nandor’s hypnosis skills: it worked here bc these are all things that the elderly women wanted to experience i.e., to not feel pain, to be able to have a full night’s rest, etc.


	14. Duet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor brings home a new pet while Laszlo and Nadja perform at another open mic night.

.

.

Sometimes it was difficult to imagine the soldier Nandor had once been before immortality softened him into a vampire who helped ducklings walk across a busy intersection to get to their mother.

Guillermo couldn’t help but roll his eyes fondly at the vampire as he began to scoop up the wandering ducklings into his arms, baring his fangs at the long line of honking cars.

“Stop it with that infernal noise! You are confusing the ducklings!”

“Nandor,“ Guillermo began, torn between going out into the street or staying within the safe harbor of the sidewalk, the street lamp flickering above him. Eventually, he decided to take a few steps into the street, stooping briefly to usher a duckling or two towards the safety of the sidewalk. “Can’t you just control them? Make them leave the street?”

“I was getting to that!” Nandor huffed. It was clear that he hadn’t thought to simply make the animals follow him.

**

“I can’t believe you kept one,” Guillermo muttered, casting a knowing gaze at the way the vampire was attempting to conceal a moving bundle in his arms by draping his cloak over it.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

A sound that was very obviously a quack rang through the foyer.

“...Fine. I kept one.” Nandor swept the cloak away, revealing the duckling curled asleep in his arms. “But see, he is the runt of the litter.”

“I-I don’t think that litter is the right word—“

“Anyway, I must go and do the research on your computing device. I am not very familiar with duck husbandry, but it cannot be too different from taking care of horses, no?”

Guillermo sighed, but inwardly he was proud that Nandor seemed ready to take on the responsibility of taking care of a living creature. He was sure that even just a year ago, the vampire would have forced him to take care of the animal in his stead.

“I’ll grab my laptop later. For now, let’s set up a place for him in the upstairs tub.”

Before they could head upstairs, Nadja and Laszlo came gliding into the house, Colin in tow. It only took Guillermo a few moments to connect the dots—they had all come back from another open mic night.

“We really knocked them dead, darling,” Laszlo said, bringing Nadja into his arms.

“Yes, we drank from so many yummy humans tonight,” Nadja agreed, placing a soft, bloodstained kiss to her husband’s cheek. “It really made the standing ovation all the more special since so many of them had been nearly drained dry.”

“I also got in a few good meals,” Colin interrupted with a chuckle. “They were—they were really bone dry by the time I was done. There’s nothing like debating the pros and cons of almond milk versus skim milk.”

The pair ignored the energy vampire, their gaze swiveling to Nandor, Guillermo, and the tiny creature in Nandor’s arms.

“Is that a little duckling?” Nadja asked, clearly excited.

“You’re not planning to eat that thing, are you, old chap? It’s a horrid idea. Trust me, all water fowl taste, well, foul,” Laszlo added.

Nandor hissed, cradling the duckling closer to his chest. “ _No! I would never!_ This is John, my newest companion. I will raise him to be the strongest duck the world has ever seen!”

“Yes, yes, that is all good, Nandor, but I would like to hold him. May I?” Nadja approached, arms outstretched.

Reluctantly, the vampire transferred the sleeping animal into Nadja’s arms.

Nadja cooed sweetly at the duckling, scratching underneath its chin with a manicured finger. “How adorable and pitiful. I love this duckling, Nandor. You must raise him well.”

**

Sometime later, Guillermo found himself sitting on the chaise lounge in the music room with Nandor, the duckling curled in the space between them as Laszlo and Nadja sang. It was their usual line of bawdy tunes, but somehow, everything felt different. Guillermo realized that this was the first time that he truly felt like a participant in the vampire’s nightly escapades—even down to the way they attempted to unwind before going to coffin.

The fire in the fireplace crackled dimly behind them, casting the pair in a warm, orange glow. They seemed more alive, more human than usual, but Guillermo imagined that the slight flush in their cheeks was likely due to having just come back from a successful hunt. As they sang their duet, voices lowering to a soft whisper, the human felt himself drift off, lulled to sleep in the company of three vampires.

When he woke much later, he found that someone had propped a little decorative pillow underneath his head, a knitted blanket was pulled over his chest, and a glass of water had been left for him next to a full carafe. While he couldn’t be certain on the first two acts of kindness, he knew without a doubt that Nandor had left the water glass for him—despite explaining the whole chocolate espresso bean fiasco, the vampire still insisted on making sure that Guillermo stayed hydrated.

He quickly fell back to sleep with a smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm very excited for season 3 because i hope it means that nandor gets to raise a hellhound (or hell-puppy, maybe?) so he can name it john


	15. Lucky Brews

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laszlo practices his bar-tending skills on Guillermo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for unsafe drinking practices

.

.

It was rare that Guillermo and Laszlo were left alone in the house together. It was also incredibly awkward. With Guillermo no longer being a familiar and Laszlo knowing that the human could easily kill him without breaking a sweat, neither man knew exactly how to act in the other’s presence.

Really then it’s no surprise that Laszlo decides rather quickly that the solution to the growing tension between them is to serve Guillermo alcohol. In his defense, however, Laszlo was more than happy to relive his short but chaotic career as a bartender. This was just a suitable excuse to do so—after all, none of his other housemates could drink alcohol.

Three fruity but high proof drinks later and Guillermo was a giggling, sleepy mess. It was almost endearing, Laszlo thought, how the human attempted to stay awake, swaying in the bar stool that Laszlo had found and brought down from the attic to add to the _genuine_ _bar experience_.

“I think that’s enough for you tonight, Gizmo,” Laszlo said, the old, insulting nickname coming out somewhat fondly from the vampire’s lips. “Nandor would have my head if something happened to you.”

At the mention of his former master’s name, Guillermo stops swaying, a rather serious expression overtaking his features. It seemed as if he were having a brief moment of clarity within his alcohol-addled mind.

“D’you think Nandor really cares about me? Like really, really cares? Like really, really, really—“

Laszlo shushed the human, drawing a black fingernail over Guillermo’s lips. “Enough of that, little chap. You’ve made your question abundantly clear so here is my answer: simply put, _yes_. That bloody idiot ratted us out to the Council for a crime we didn’t even commit to protect you and you’re still wondering if he cares?”

Guillermo hiccuped, teary-eyed. “B-but then why do I still feel like he hates me?”

“Nandor is blessedly uncomplicated—he loves what he loves and hates what he hates. If he hated you, Guillermo, you would not still be here in this house. The fact that you are alive and well should be proof enough. You recall how many familiars Nadja and I have gone through.”

Swaying to his feet, Guillermo approached the vampire, arms outstretched. It wasn’t immediately clear if Guillermo understood Laszlo’s entire tirade, but he had gotten the gist of it, at least. “You’re so nice, Laszlo!”

“ _Eughh,_ do not touch me—“ Laszlo cut himself off with a curse, just managing to catch Guillermo before he took a nosedive onto the wooden floor. He had managed to trip over the corner of the carpet in his attempt to reach Laszlo behind the counter, clumsiness amplified by the drink flowing through his veins.

With a sigh, Laszlo shook his head, tightening his grip around Guillermo. “Alright, let’s get you to coffin, little man.”

“Coffin?” Guillermo replied in a sleepy haze, leaning heavily against the vampire.

Laszlo paused, brows furrowing. “Oh, right. I guess I’ll be getting you to a perfectly regular human mattress.”

**

“Guillermo? Laszlo? We’re home!” Nandor called from the foyer, two large shopping bags in each hand. Nadja followed in behind him with her own bags while Colin Robinson brought up the rear of the group, a half-chewed celery stick in his hand. It turned out that making loud crunching noises was a great way to annoy both vampires and humans inside the shopping mall.

When no one responded, Nandor dropped his bags off to the side with a huff. “Laszlo, if you ate Guillermo I will be very cross with you! Especially since I told you not to eat him!”

Nadja rolled her eyes. “Oh, calm down you big turkey. I can hear Guillermo’s heartbeat from here. He’s fine.”

Following the sound, the vampires eventually found themselves just outside the big blue room, the door cracked open slightly.

“What the _fuck_ is this shit?” Nandor hissed the moment he stepped inside the room, eyes as wide as saucers.

Nadja likewise made a noise somewhere between a hiss and a scandalized gasp. “Laszlo, my darling, are you planning to sleep with everyone that lives with us?”

Colin raised his hand with a chuckle, startling the other vampires. They had all genuinely forgotten that he had followed them into the room. “And I’d totally be down, for the record. I didn’t really get any action during last year’s orgy so I’m feeling a bit left out, you know. It’s rough being an energy vampire sometimes. No one wants to sleep with you—they just, uh, literally fall asleep.”

As expected, everyone ignored him. 

A look of genuine panic crossed Laszlo’s face. “I can’t move—he’s got a fucking stake in his hand! I only wanted to help him get to bed since he was too sloshed to walk up the stairs by himself. This is the last time I do anything nice for anyone in the house aside from my lovely Nadja.”

Sure enough, upon further inspection, the other vampires could see that Guillermo had somehow ended up using Laszlo’s lap as a pillow, his arms tucked around the vampire’s waist. A wooden stake was peeking out of Guillermo’s right hand, poised uncomfortably at Laszlo’s side.

Just as Nandor opened his mouth, the human in question made a pleased hum, stretching further across Laszlo’s lap. With a flutter of his eyelashes, he blearily regained some semblance of wakefulness.

He recognized the blurry form of Nandor almost immediately. “Master!” He chirped, the stake rolling out of his hand. His grip on the vampire loosened.

Laszlo took that as his cue to slip out from underneath Guillermo, letting out a sigh of relief as he rushed over to Nadja’s side.

“Guillermo, you are no longer my familiar, remember?” Nandor paused. “Did Laszlo accidentally do the brain scramblies on you?”

Guillermo furrowed his brows. “If I’m no longer your familiar… does that mean you fired me?”

“No, I did not fire you,” Nandor scoffed. “You are clearly not on fire. Nor have you ever been on fire aside from that time on my seven hundred and fifty-sixth birthday when I asked you to light all the candles on the cake I could not eat and your sleeve caught on fire.”

“Then why am I not your familiar anymore? I don’t understand…”

Nandor shot a glare in Laszlo’s direction. “What did you do to Guillermo’s memory?”

“Nothing. He’s just absolutely shit-faced, my friend. I’m sure he’ll remember everything once he’s no longer drunk,” Laszlo explained, already heading towards the door, hand entwined with Nadja’s.

The other vampires quickly filed out of the room, leaving Nandor alone with a drunk and very confused human.

Wordlessly, Nandor reached for the corner of the bed-sheets, effortlessly slipping them out from underneath Guillermo.

“M-master?”

Knowing it wasn’t worth correcting him, Nandor merely sighed. “It’s time to go nighty-night, Guillermo.”

“But what about you?” he asked, concern apparent in his voice.

Even as drunk as he was, he still managed to worry about Nandor. The realization made something in the vampire’s chest clench at the thought.

“I will manage just fine, thank you. I can open and close my own coffin," he replies a tad too quickly, hoping his snappy tone will be enough to make Guillermo drop his current line of questioning.

When it looked like Guillermo still might argue, Nandor gently pressed down on the man’s shoulder, urging him to lie back down. He then brought the sheets up to Guillermo’s neck. “Fine. As your master, I order you to go to bed. You are very tipsy right now and in no position to be helping me.”

Cocooned firmly under the covers, Guillermo could only nod, tiredness once again stealing over his features. Nandor quickly blew out the candles, hesitating as his hand hovered just above the curve of Guillermo’s shoulder.

“G’night, Master…” Guillermo mumbled out, turning onto his side, hand reaching out blindly in the dark. After a few moments of tired pawing, his hand collided with the cold metal of Nandor’s ring. Guillermo smiled sweetly at the sensation, fingers curling over the vampire’s knuckles.

There was little Nandor could do to hide the genuine affection in his voice at the sight of his ex-familiar so relaxed, cheeks still flushed pink from the drinks Laszlo made for him. “Goodnight, Guillermo…”

The vampire leaves once Guillermo is asleep again, gently slipping his hand out of the human’s lax grip. He tries not to think about why he missed the warmth of his ex-familiar’s hand, flexing his fingers absentmindedly in the dark of his crypt, his coffin seeming a bit lonelier than usual. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh i need a moment in s3 where laszlo tries to get on guillermo’s good side by making him fruity cocktails.


	16. Hellhound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo meets the Staten Island vampires’ new hellhound for the first time.

.

.

Guillermo tilted his head, squinting. The dog looked like, well, a regular dog. A rather fluffy dog, too, some mix of a poodle and a teacup breed resulting in a dog that looked more like a stuffed animal than a living, breathing creature.

Nandor whistled, patting his knees as he sat in the backyard, using one of his old capes as a makeshift blanket underneath him. “Okay, Mr. Hellhound, can you come over here, please?”

The dog bounded excitedly towards the vampire and it was in that moment that Guillermo felt a sudden chill rip through his spine. The dog looked the same, but its shadow was ghastly. Its shadow a monstrous thing with dozens of glowing red eyes the very color of the flames of Hell. A faint, low growl rumbled in his ears like thunder. It was dizzying and terrifying and Guillermo settled uncomfortably into the sweeping realization that the dog wasn’t really a dog but a nightmarish demon beyond human comprehension.

Like a switch, however, the heavy atmosphere dissipates as soon as the hellhound flops onto its belly in front of Nandor, tail wagging excitedly. There is no longer anything strange about the dog’s shadow—it’s just a regular shadow now.

Guillermo immediately sends a prayer heavenward, though he’s not really sure what he’s praying for. Maybe to not get eaten by the dog that has seemed to take a special liking to Nandor, he muses, watching the pair warily.

“Good boy,” the vampire coos, rubbing the animal’s belly. Nothing but pure adoration can be seen in the hellhound’s eyes—well, adoration and the barest hint of hellfire.

“Who’s a strong and vicious hellhound? Who will follow me into battle and help me slaughter our enemies?” Nandor pauses, grin widening. “Yes, it’s you!”

The dog yelps happily at this, rolling to its feet to leap up onto the vampire’s lap. It licks at Nandor’s cheek, causing the man to giggle.

“Haha, yes, I’m excited to bathe in the blood of our enemies as well!”

After a few moments, Nandor catches Guillermo’s stilted gaze.

“What’s wrong, Guillermo? Do you not like puppy dogs?”

“I like dogs just fine—but that’s not a dog.”

“Yes, he’s a hellhound, but that’s basically a dog.”

“It eats human flesh.”

Nandor shrugged. “Dogs do that too if they get hungry enough.”

“It smells like the pits of Hell.”

“Then give him a bath.”

“His shadow literally had hundreds of glowing red eyes.”

Nandor gives a crooked, knowing grin. “Ah, I see. You are afraid of dogs, aren’t you?”

“W-what? No! I like dogs.”

If Nandor heard him, he didn’t show it. Instead, he rose from the grassy yard, holding the hellhound comfortably in his arms. He then looked down at the dog and waited until he had its attention.

“Okay, first rule, Mr. Hellhound. You must be kind to Guillermo. He is a human but he is off limits.”

The dog gave a sleepy bark in return, nestling further against the vampire’s chest.

“Great! See, Guillermo? You’re perfectly safe. The hellhound will not hurt you.”

Though Guillermo wanted to argue, he simply sighed, unable to hide his fond grin. Nandor was trying in his own way to make him feel better and even if Guillermo was still apprehensive about the new hellhound, he was sure he’d get used to him. Just like everything else about living with vampires, most things took time to get used to.

“Thanks, Nandor.”

“You’re welcome, Guillermo.” He turned back towards the house. “Now let’s go back inside. You haven’t gotten rid of that last body yet, have you? I think our little hellhound is probably getting hungry.”

Guillermo immediately pales at the mental image that Nandor’s words conjure up in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay another galaxy brain idea: they feed the corpses to the hellhound so guillermo doesn’t have to deal with corpse disposal duty anymore!


	17. Van Helsing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo summons the ghost of Abraham Van Helsing to answer some questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild spoilers for dracula??? i mean i think we all have a vague notion of how that book went... but just in case lol ^^;

.

.

The specter of Abraham Van Helsing looks eerily similar to how he was described in _Dracula_.

Guillermo sucks in a breath at the diaphanous visage of the hunter, a man who appeared to be in his late fifties, bright orange hair parted neatly down the middle and streaked with silver. A pair of small, round spectacles concealed his blue eyes, which were framed by thick, bushy brows and a splattering of freckles. His brows made him look as severe and learned as he was described in the book and naturally drew attention away from the sharp slope of his clean-shaven jaw to the deep lines that stretched over his forehead. What surprised him the most, however, was that he could actually see some family resemblance between them. There was more than a century of time between them and yet there was a flicker of recognition reflected in each other’s eyes—it felt almost as if this was the first time in his life that anyone had genuinely seen him.

 _Oh,_ Guillermo thinks, a cold shiver of understanding creeping up his spine. _So this is who I am. Who I’m meant to be._

When the ghost speaks, it’s with a thick, accented voice that Guillermo can’t quite place. It reminds him faintly of Nandor’s accent—an accent that did not belong to the world anymore, something that should have been transformed by the passage of time, but instead remained as immutable as gold.

“Ah, I know who you are, dear child,” Van Helsing says, no malice evident in his tone. His lips pull into a gentle smile and Guillermo begins to understand how this man—this intelligent but otherwise terribly fragile human man—managed to brave all sorts of horrors. It was because of love.

Guillermo remembered the book, remembered how much Van Helsing had sacrificed in his attempt to save Lucy and then Mina. How he put his life on the line for people he had barely known and inspired loyalty and camaraderie between an unlikely group of acquaintances. He loved humanity so much that he devoted his life to protecting it, to pushing against the dark that had, at the time, threatened to swallow all of London whole.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over him. Here he was, gifted with power far beyond his wildest dreams, and he was using it to protect a group of vampires who, up until recently, had treated him like a bumbling, unnecessary servant.

“Guillermo de la Cruz... I know you are of my bloodline—I can sense a great power emanating from you,” the ghost continued, adjusting his glasses. “But I doubt you summoned me for something as banal as a family chat. What is on your mind?”

It was at that exact moment that Nandor drifted over, book in hand, and there was a sudden, palpable change in energy in the room. Though he was a ghost and his ability to interact with the living world was tenuous at best, the famed vampire hunter had swiftly opened up the briefcase on the table to reveal a crossbow, a silver-tipped arrow already loaded. He did not point it at the vampire, but he held the crossbow at his side all the same.

Nandor hissed once he looked up from his book, stepping back. “ _Guillermo_ , why is there a ghost with a crossbow in our dining room?”

Guillermo’s heart fluttered at the use of _our_ , but he stamped the emotion down with a nervous chuckle. He had thought the vampires were out for the night… but clearly Nandor had stuck around the house for some reason. “Well, uh, you see… that’s actually Abraham Van Helsing.”

A surprisingly genuine look of excitement crosses the vampire’s face. “Oh, so this is your great, great, great, grandpappy?” For a moment, it looks like Nandor might stick his hand out in greeting but grimaces when he remembers that the man before him is dead.

“Who are you?” the ghost asks, expression unreadable.

Nandor grins. He’s always ready to talk about himself. “I am Nandor the Relentless, conqueror of thousands, immortal warrior who has twice turned the Euphrates itself red with blood. You may address me as just Nandor, however. Anything longer and then it just gets excessive.”

“I apologize, but I am terribly confused,” Van Helsing admits, folding his hands over the table. “Are you perhaps one of Guillermo’s prisoners?”

“Prisoner?” Nandor replies, clearly offended. “Guillermo, did you tell your grandpappy that I was captured by you to impress him? You did not need to do that—you could have simply told him of your relentless vampire slaughtering at the theatre. That was impressive even to me, an immortal warrior.”

Guillermo quickly jumps in, unconsciously moving to stand between the two men. He wasn’t sure how ghosts worked in the living world, but he didn’t want to find out if an ectoplasmic arrow could cause Nandor actual harm. “Nandor is a friend. I live with him and a few other vampires. It’s probably a bit unconventional—a vampire hunter living with a bunch of vampires—but they’re really harmless.”

“Hey!” Nandor began, frowning. “I am not harmle—“

“They’re like domesticated housecats,” Guillermo interrupts, shooting a warning glare at the vampire.

For once, Nandor actually remains silent, clocking Guillermo’s expression. One benefit of the theatre incident was that most of the vampires actually listened to him now. 

“I see…” Van Helsing trails, eyeing the smooth, unblemished skin of Guillermo’s neck. Something like acceptance flickers in his eyes. “I do not understand how you could live with the very embodiment of evil, but it is your life. I will not try to control it from beyond the grave.”

“W-wow. That’s very kind of you.”

Van Helsing smiles. “We are of the same flesh and blood—I trust that you are making the right decisions when it comes to these leeches.”

Nandor rolls his eyes. “And I am tired of this family reunion already. Guillermo, I will be reading in my crypt if you need me.”

With Nandor headed back to his crypt, Guillermo could finally ask Van Helsing the questions that had been plaguing him for months now.

“So this power I have… sometimes it feels like I don’t have control over it. I’m worried about hurting my friends. I know they’re vampires but they’re… important to me. Is there a way to keep myself from hurting them?”

Van Helsing nodded gravely. “Yes, you could say it is in an instinct. Or a reflex, if you will. It cannot be repressed, only understood. You are still young, my child. It will take time for you to realize the difference between a tool and a weapon. You see, you are still thinking of your ancestry as a weapon when it is actually a tool. It doesn’t have to be a sword—for the sake of your… interesting vampire friends, it can also be a shield. But that is a choice you must make consciously every day.”

“O-Oh,” Guillermo breathes, absorbing his ancestor’s words. For so long he had seen his ancestry as a curse, something that got in the way of his dream of becoming a vampire. But if he saw it as a tool, as something he could hone and sharpen with time… then maybe, just maybe, he could grow into this power. Be the vampire hunter that could kill vampires that threatened those he loved and also shield the vampires that he wanted to protect. “Thank you, Mr. Van Helsing.”

There was a mischievous twinkle in the ghost’s eyes. “That’s Doctor Van Helsing to you,” he replied, giving a conspiratorial wink. “Now then, I am feeling a tad bit exhausted now. I must go, but you are more than welcome to call on me again if you need any more advice. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, Guillermo. I know you will make a wonderful vampire hunter someday.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Van Helsing,” Guillermo waves, watching as the man fades into the dark. “I’ll do my best to make you proud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i made van helsing nice bc i think guillermo deserves a nice great, great, great, great grandpa that he can call on for vampire hunting advice who also will 100% make the staten island vamps’ lives a living hell if they continue to be mean & unappreciative of guillermo.


	18. Corpse Disposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The documentary crew decides to do a segment on corpse disposal with Guillermo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> major trigger warnings for this chapter!!! if you are squeamish in relation to blood, body horror, rot/decay, etc., this is not the prompt for you.

.

.

Guillermo deliberates on how cheery he should be during the segment.

This wasn’t like his other chores—sweeping the house, boarding windows, taking care of any potential fire hazards. He knows that the documentary footage swings wildly between slapstick hilarity and nightmare-inducing horror, but disposing of bodies wasn’t funny or horrific.

Mainly, it was just sad.

It was easy in the moment to compartmentalize his actions. Like he had said to the cameras before: he wasn’t killing people… he was just finding people who were easy to kill. Not that it absolved him of much guilt, but it was better than outright admitting to being an accessory to murder.

So here he was, ten years into his career as a familiar, and all he had to show for it was a disturbing encyclopedic knowledge on human decomposition and how best to bury a body. His legacy, a backyard of rotting corpses, only spurned a marrow-deep anxiety that he too would one day be buried in the makeshift graveyard. He hoped at least that the vampires would be kind enough to bury him somewhere nice—like near the rose bushes or the tiny gazebo where he and Nandor often sat, chatting the night away as they looked up at the stars.

And yet despite everything, he still couldn’t say that he regretted his decision to be Nandor’s familiar. His dream of becoming a vampire felt more and more unattainable with each passing year, but there were still other reasons as to why he stuck around the Staten Island house.

 _The heart wants what the heart wants,_ he thinks wistfully, fully aware of his own infatuation with Nandor. There was no use trying to deny it; the love and adoration he felt for Nandor was likely obvious to everyone but the vampire himself. How else could he explain ten years of near backbreaking manual labor, of bone saws and bleach and bodies rolled up in layers of black tarp? Love demanded sacrifice—and Guillermo had mastered sacrifice long ago. Time, his morals, perhaps even his mortal soul, if he still believed in such things, all paled in comparison to the promise of eternity—to the promise of remaining at Nandor’s side.

“Guillermo!” Nandor called from somewhere within the house. “I am in need of your assistance, please!”

Freed from the dark, messy spiral of his thoughts, Guillermo rushed back into the house, mindful to wipe his boots off at the door so he didn’t track in any dirt.

It would only be later in the night that Nandor, laying supine in his coffin, would remark on the faint scent of dead blood. The flecks of crimson on his boots would have gone unnoticed otherwise, but once he finally finds the source of the odor, Guillermo scrubs the gardening boots clean with bleach and then leaves them to soak in a bucket. He thinks it should bother him—the idea that there is dried blood on his clothes and shoes and even, sometimes, his hair—but it doesn’t. He wants it to bother him. Let him pretend that these years of servitude haven’t irreparably changed him. 

(He’s Guillermo de la Cruz and he is a good familiar, which means he’s an awful human being.)

This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel guilt—only that it comes in waves. Guilt becomes a part of himself that he can’t bear to look at. It’s insidious, all the ways he’s sacrificed his humanity for the sake of monsters. He wants to be like them, be monstrous and powerful and beautiful—but first he must become monstrous. It is the easiest and hardest thing Guillermo has ever done.

If you spend enough time exploring the crests and troughs of your brain, you’ll eventually find the soft, vulnerable place where your trauma festers. Guillermo imagines his trauma as a sunken ship full of rotting boards and yellowed skeletons, relicts of what he killed to become a vampire’s familiar. He leaves it untouched and half-buried in the sea floor, in the wreck of his subconscious mind, as he goes through the motions of his day-to-day life.

There was very little that could stir the trauma to the surface, but every once in a while, he sees something that makes the very ocean recede, revealing the ship with its torn skull-and-crossbones flag. Guillermo tries not to grow attached to victims. He is the one who will ultimately be dismembering their bodies with a bone saw, after all. But sometimes there are people who refuse to die quietly. That is, there are people who grapple with Death, that will look the specter of their demise in the face and spit at it. Those are the people that haunt his dreams.

He’s tired of death. He has watched too many people die. He has touched too many cold bodies. He doesn’t know how to be human anymore—or maybe he’s never known how to be human to begin with. All he knows is that it is all too much and not enough and if he continues to think about death like this he is sure he is going to lose his final, fraying thread of sanity.

In the end, he decides he'll approach the segment like a lecture. Facts only. Hopefully it will be enough to keep his pesky, messy emotions out of the way. 

**

Guillermo sits stiffly in the armchair, fingers drumming on the armrest. He is only faintly aware that Nandor is also in the room, watching from the threshold.

The director prompts him with an easy question. It should be a simple yes or no answer, but Guillermo chews on his bottom lip, boring holes into the camera. He thinks he catches the smell of rot drift through the room, and for a moment, he feels like he might be sick.

That was the thing about death: it lingered. The stench of decay wasn’t something you got used to. You learned to bear it, to never let the weight of what you were doing—whether that was running a severed leg in the midst of livor mortis through a bone saw, what blood was left in the limb pooling dorsally to create a ghastly ribbon of plum-tinged, necrotic skin that made it impossible for you to eat anything purple for weeks afterwards or pouring dark, clotted blood down an ancient sink, chasing it down with bleach to discourage the gathering of blowflies—sink its teeth into your flesh. You were always treading water in that sense, aware that at any moment you could drown in the ugliness of it all—in the realization that your hands were capable of both kindness and cold, calculating cruelty.

Death lingered. It would always overstay its welcome, especially in a house full of vampires. There were times that he would spend hours in the shower scrubbing away at his skin, the water having long since gone cold, frantically trying to make himself feel clean again. Sometimes, it seemed impossible to get rid of the stench of rot no matter how long he stayed underneath the tepid spray of the shower. It was as if he was the one rotting from the inside. 

He had many sleepless mornings because of these secret fears, imagining that there was a dead man underneath his cot. Sometimes he even imagined the buzz of flies or the squelch of maggots digging into the yellowing flesh, leaving pockmarked holes in their wake. Early on, it had gotten so bad that even Nandor had noticed his nightmares and gave him a few weeks off from corpse disposal duty despite the chorus of groans from his other vampiric housemates.That had been a moment that Guillermo had clung to whenever his thoughts went to even darker places, whenever his hands lingered on the edge of the curtain, allowing light to spill over Nandor's coffin. 

Faintly, Guillermo wonders if he’s having a nightmare now. Surely he hadn’t been stupid enough to actually agree to a segment on corpse disposal. Not when he knew just how ill-adjusted he was to the process, how he still found himself gagging as he hurriedly shoved organs into a large trash bag to make it easier to both move, dismember, and bury the body later.

The silence extends for long past what would be considered polite in conversation as Guillermo grows pale with nausea. The documentary crew makes no attempt to prompt Guillermo into speaking, Cameras One and Two still pointed and rolling at his face.

 _Do you need me to make them go away?_ Nandor asks, dream-like voice drifting through Guillermo’s mind. It was rare for Nandor to breach his own self imposed _no communicating to familiars through the ether_ rule, but there were exceptions. Guillermo can feel Nandor there, hovering just past the door to his mind in the brief sensation of physical pressure against his eyelids. It’s oddly comforting and reminds him somewhat of a weighted blanket—just enough pressure to be calming rather than suffocating.

 _No. But if you could stay with me…_ he trails off, making eye contact with Nandor across the room.

A brief flicker of a smile passes Nandor’s lips as he nods. He moves to settle in one of the armchairs in the corner, out of range from the documentary crew's cameras. He flips open a random book, but he still remains on the same page minutes later. 

“Sorry about that,” Guillermo begins, settling his hands in his lap. “Can we start over? I got lost in my head for a bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway... keep reading for some forensic science facts if u want: 
> 
> livor mortis, a common marker for death, occurs when blood pools in certain areas of the body due to gravity. in forensic work, this can help establish a baseline time of death & also help determine if a body has been moved/staged after death. for instance, if a body is found supine but the blood is pooling anteriorly (i.e., chest), then u can assume that the body was originally lying prone (like on their tummy) since gravity would make the blood pool in this way and you’d see the purple discoloration like a stripe down their chest. 
> 
> so yeah, i’d like to thank wwdits for giving me an outlet for all the forensic/mortuary science i’ve been learning at work as it’s not really something i can ramble abt anywhere else lol 
> 
> hope to do a full piece on this concept, but this is what i’ve got for now. thanks for all the support so far <333


	19. Bat!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor falls into a muddy puddle as a bat and Guillermo is tasked with helping him clean up.

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“Come on,” Guillermo says, attempting to wrangle the little bat into his arms.

The animal gave an indignant squawk at being manhandled, going so far as to bite into the meat of Guillermo’s thumb, drawing blood.

Guillermo hissed at the sudden flare of pain, palm flexing open on reflex, allowing the bat to nearly slip through his fingers. He is quicker, however, and manages to pull the bat back into his hands, grip much gentler than the unruly vampire deserved.

“Seriously? Fuck off, Nandor,” Guillermo chided, holding the bat at chest level as it futilely tried to wiggle out of his grasp. “It’s not my fault that you fell into a muddy puddle!”

Another indignant squawk.

Guillermo snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to fly face-first into my bedroom window.”

More chittering, this time punctuated by the bat equivalent of a huff.

“Why would I leave my window open when the Council is still hell-bent on trying to kill us? You’re lucky I even recognized you.”

Truthfully, Nandor was fairly easy to recognize in his bat form. He was larger than Nadja or Laszlo and had a thin strip of white fur on his chest. His eyes glowed a faint silver when exposed to light as they were doing now in the candlelight of the upstairs bathroom, two moonstones set in a sea of dark brown fur.

Guillermo watched with thinly veiled amusement as the bat stuck his tongue out, licking first at the unmarred skin of his index finger before pushing his luck and going straight for the blood beading at Guillermo’s thumb. He gave a happy little chitter, finally relaxing in the human’s grip, clearly sated.

“You’re lucky you’re cute like this,” the vampire hunter muttered, finally reaching for the sink faucet with his free hand.

At the sound of running water, Nandor paused mid-lick, eyes widening.

“Okay, the water’s warm now so it should be fine for you to hop in.”

When the vampire refused to budge from the man’s open palm, Guillermo sighed. “I’ll even use your favorite loofa. And the soap that smells like honey and lavender.”

Successfully bribed, the bat hopped awkwardly into the sink basin, the water covering him up to his chin. Guillermo worked carefully to clean the bat, making sure his fur was free from any leftover clumps of leaf or mud. Throughout all of this, Nandor actually behaved rather sweetly, letting his ex-familiar bathe him with little fuss. Eventually, he even began to close his eyes, completely at ease as Guillermo reached for a white hand towel. He made sure the vampire was completely dry before he allowed him to climb up on his shoulder, one of Nandor’s favorite perches whenever he was in bat form.

“Are you going to change back soon?”

The bat shook its head, sticking its claws firmly in the fabric of Guillermo’s sweater. Within moments, it had crossed the length of Guillermo’s shoulder to press against the warm skin of Guillermo’s throat. It made sense—it was a chilly night in Staten Island and Nandor had fallen into an icy puddle. No wonder he seemed determined to leech as much heat off his ex-familiar as he could get away with.

“Well, I’m heading to bed, so...”

The creature nestled further into the crook of Guillermo’s neck, trilling happily.

With a roll of his eyes, Guillermo continued his usual nightly routine, aware that Nandor seemed unlikely to budge anytime soon.

Once he was done, he left the bathroom and ventured into his room.

“Sleeping here?” He asked, reaching up to pet the bat’s head. Nandor leaned up into the touch and yawned, fangs glinting in the candlelight. The vampire was always softer in his animal form, less prickly and prone to letting his true feelings shine through. Perhaps that was why Guillermo was so quick to indulge him—it felt as close to the real, genuine Nandor as he would get, sometimes. He knew that Nandor cared for him, but it was secretly nice to see that the vampire could actually be clingy when he wanted to.

“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes.”

Even before Guillermo had stopped being a familiar, Nandor had slept a few times in his old bedroom under the stairs in the form of either a bat or dog, clearly lonely and wanting companionship but being too stubborn and emotionally constipated to admit it aloud.

“Goodnight, Nandor.”

The bat licked the skin just above his clavicle in response, rousing a sleepy giggle from Guillermo. It was easy enough to fall asleep after that, knowing that at some point in the day Nandor would likely return to his human form and slink back to his coffin.

But for now, Guillermo simply enjoyed Nandor’s presence—even if it was as a bat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i'm finally caught up now :D hopefully y'all have enjoyed these last 5 chapters~ 
> 
> anyway, i really hope we get to see more of the vampire trio as bats bc i personally think bats are pretty neat!


	20. Protocols

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to Guillermo, Nandor finds himself bending all the rules—even at the cost of his own life.

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Rules were important.

Nandor, for as scatter-brained as he seemed, had multiple journals full of notes laboriously taken at every house meeting. He was always trying to organize his life, to enact some semblance of control over his lot as a vampire, make sense of the ruins of his time as a conqueror. Nandor had rarely felt helpless as a human; as a vampire, he was intimately aware of how vulnerable he truly was—how no vampire could go through their unlife alone. That if the sun or hunger did not kill them, then the madness of an eternity alone most certainly would.

Guillermo had unknowingly stepped into his life around the time that Nandor felt himself slipping into the same traps that ancient vampires often fell prey to: loneliness. After more than seven hundred years as a vampire, Nandor was beginning to forget what it was like to be human. But Guillermo had changed that.

His genuine interest and achingly pure adoration for vampires had stirred something deep in the recesses of Nandor’s silent heart. It made him want to impress the little human, to make him smile, to see him tilt his head back in a carefree laugh as they soared through the skies, the cold night air whipping past them. It became clear early on in their relationship that if Nandor didn’t want to fall again—fall again for the first time since he watched his wives’ departing figures as they left Al Quolanudar, the scent of jasmine and lilies haunting him for years afterwards—he would need to be careful. He would need to be smart. He would need to rebuild his walls. He would need to follow a strict set of rules—stricter than he did with other familiars in the past.

So he did what he had to, all the while ignoring the tender ache in his heart. He adapted his original set of protocols on how to treat a familiar to fit his situation with Guillermo. He tried not to think about how often he found himself ignoring the rules entirely. Up until this human—with his soft sweaters and warm, tan skin and sweet smiles and mesmerizing brown eyes—Nandor was loathe to go against protocols. Especially those he had enacted himself.

But it kept happening. Boundaries kept being tested, pushed, redrawn, until Nandor wasn’t sure where he ended and Guillermo began. They were like a pair of binary stars stuck in the same orbit, drawn together by gravity and destined to circle one another. He saw it happen in every room, the invisible thread between them shortening until Nandor had to consciously remind himself to pull away, to ignore the sharp blade of guilt that wedged itself into his heart at Guillermo’s crestfallen face.

But Nandor was growing tired of it. He was getting too old to be playing these games, to still be harboring the same ancient fears that had kept him awake as a human. When Nandor was human, he fell in love hard and fast, like a meteor plummeting to the ground. Nothing could stop it.

He should have known that it would be the same as a vampire.

**

Rules were important.

Nandor was currently breaking almost every single one in his little _Guillermo’s Protocol_ notebook.

“Guillermo,” he begins, approaching the man hesitantly, similar to how he would approach a cornered animal. “I am sorry for how I treated you when you were my familiar. You deserved better. You still deserve better.”

There is a flash of recognition in Guillermo’s eyes, the hazy silver film over his irises dissipating for a fraction of a second, revealing a look of utter heartbreak.

“R-run away…” Guillermo manages to grit through clenched teeth, fingers shaking around the stake in his right hand.

Nandor takes a cautious step forward. “I am not going anywhere without you, Guillermo. We are going to go home… together. I promised you I would watch that vampire movie with you again, remember? Your favorite. The one with that Antonio Banderas guy.”

The vengeful spirit that the Council had trapped inside Guillermo’s body lets out an inhuman cackle, the echo resounding through the narrow hall. They are back where it all began, the stone walls and electric torches bringing back a flurry of emotion. This was where he had nearly sacrificed himself—and his housemates—to protect Guillermo.

A tight, unmistakable feeling of dread clenched his heart. There were only two options for Nandor: either he was going to die at Guillermo’s hand or he was going to leave the tunnel with Guillermo at his side. Even with the threat of certain death, Nandor knew he wouldn’t be able to lift a hand against Guillermo.

Instead, he closes his eyes and waits. The brief patter of footsteps is his only warning before he feels a stake twist harshly into his abdomen. Blood drips down the stake and onto the concrete floor between them as he hisses in pain, vision clouding. He reaches out for Guillermo, fingers digging into the soft, familiar fabric of the human’s blue sweater. For a moment, he lets himself indulge—pretends that there isn’t a stake in his side, that he isn’t making a final desperate attempt at getting Guillermo to wake up when he wraps his arms around the man’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the crown of messy, brown curls of his would-be killer.

Silence follows. Then, suddenly, the stake is wrenched away, clattering far off into the dark. Guillermo lets out a gasp, irises the same, familiar brown that Nandor had grown to love.

The wound in his side is already stitching itself closed, a benefit of being as ancient as Nandor was. He feels weak and sluggish on his feet, but he tightens his hold around Guillermo all the same. He knows how close he has come to losing Guillermo forever.

“…You are back with me, yes?” Nandor asks, though it’s more for Guillermo’s sake than his. He smiles softly, looking down at the man’s tearful expression. He wipes away the first few teardrops with his thumb. “There’s no reason to be upset, Guillermo. You came back just in time.”

“Nandor, I almost killed you!” Guillermo replies, nearly hysterical. Actual sobs begin to wrack his frame and Nandor sighs, cradling the back of Guillermo’s head as they slink to the floor in a tangle of tired limbs. Guillermo presses his face into the crook of Nandor’s neck, chest rising and falling erratically with every frantic breath.

“Shhh… it’s alright. I am Okay-A. We can pretend this was payback for when I accidentally dropped you,” Nandor says, trying to lighten the mood.

Somehow, it seems to be exactly what Guillermo needed to hear. The man lets out a sniffling laugh, shoulders relaxing. Nandor could feel him smiling against his neck.

“That really fucking hurt, you know.”

“…I know. And I’m sorry,” Nandor pauses, swallowing thickly. “I was very… scared, back then. I never meant to hurt you.”

“It was an accident. I would never hold it against you.”

Nandor smiles. “Just as I would never hold you stabbing me with a pointy stake against you. It was like an accident. You didn’t mean to do it. It was all because of that pesky spirit.”

Pulling away slightly, Guillermo’s cheeks redden. It is likely the first time that he noticed their position. He tried to move away, aware of how his legs were folded over Nandor’s lap, but the vampire held him tightly in place.

“You do not need to move unless you want to,” Nandor says, looking everywhere but at Guillermo’s face. “I… don’t mind it. I don’t mind it when you’re near me. It’s nice.”

At this, Guillermo feels his face flush even further, heartbeat thundering in his chest. He doesn’t move away. When Nandor reaches forward to cup Guillermo’s face, the human leans into the touch, eyes fluttering closed, head tilting instinctively to expose the column of his throat.

Something like a hiss passes through Nandor’s lips, gums aching in hunger as he clamps his mouth shut. Guillermo had always been a bit too trusting when it came to the vampires he lived with—so many times he had witnessed Guillermo tilt his head to the side in thought, unknowingly tempting the monsters in the room. He wasn’t completely oblivious; he knew that there were times where Guillermo showed off his throat on purpose, hoping to get Nandor to finally turn him into a vampire. But this was different. It was a show of trust.

“If you only knew…” Nandor begins, thumb trailing a cold line from Guillermo’s cheekbone to his jaw and, eventually, to the warm drum of the pulse-point at his neck. “…How long I’ve wanted you.”

Guillermo’s eyes flutter open as he gasps, fingers curling tightly into the front of Nandor’s brocade.

“I need to know, Guillermo… do you feel the same about me?” the vampire pauses, weighing his words. “I have always been so afraid of driving you away. But I cannot go back to how things were. Not after tonight. I nearly lost you. I don’t think I could survive that again.”

“You won’t lose me, Nandor,” Guillermo asserts, gaze so full of warmth and affection that it nearly hurts to look into his eyes. “I’ve only ever wanted you. There was no one else—there couldn’t be. I think I’ve loved you from the start.”

When their lips finally press together, Nandor feels the phantom beat of his heart in his chest. He had been denying himself of this—the taste of Guillermo’s lips, the warmth of his skin underneath his fingertips, the sweet sounds the human made as he unraveled beneath him–for over a decade due to his own cowardice, but Nandor vowed to make up for all the lost time.

**

The first thing Nandor does when he gets home is set his _Guillermo’s Protocol_ notebook on fire.

Guillermo cocks his head, eyebrows knitting together as he watched the pages be swallowed by the hearth. “Are you sure you didn’t need that? It looked important.”

“Don’t worry—I definitely didn’t need it anymore,” Nandor says, swooping down to kiss the human again. With his free hand, he motioned towards the door to his crypt, using his powers to slam the door in the documentary crew’s faces.

Some things were better left to the imagination, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100% inspired by the NYCC 2020 WWDITS panel where kayvan novak (nandor's actor) said: "He’s wrestling with his own feelings toward Guillermo and I think that is… that could be headed in a very dangerous direction for Nandor because… you know he can’t be falling again." 
> 
> like excuse me?? falling again??? hello i am deceased... absolutely in love with the idea that nandor has been keeping his distance from guillermo solely to guard his own heart. like the poetic cinema of it all,,, anyway, that's what has been haunting my thoughts for like the past week now lol so i hope y'all enjoyed this <333


	21. Goat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black Peter makes a house visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a day late but here we are lol; hope y'all enjoy another soft chapter~

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“No, I’m not dealing with that shit again!” Nandor says, staring at the familiar black goat with wariness.

“Oh, don’t worry. Black Peter is just here to—“

Guillermo was cut off from his explanation by the sudden feeling of two arms wrapping around him.

“We’re leaving. Now,” Nandor declared, quickly launching them both into the sky.

Guillermo lets out a small yelp of surprise as the front yard disappears from underneath him, a heavy sheet of clouds obscuring the ground as they rose higher and higher. Craning his head up, he sees Nandor’s expression, brows furrowed.

“Nandor? Are you alright?”

The vampire grimaces. “I do not want to have my semen stolen again. Aren’t they getting enough already? Yeesh, I did not know that witches were so greedy.”

Guillermo knows that Black Peter had stopped by the house merely as a social visit as it was apparently a very lonely existence being an enchanted talking goat, but he doubts Nandor will believe him. He stays quiet as Nandor carries him through the sky, secretly relishing the feeling of the vampire’s arms wrapped snugly around his middle. Even after being dropped before, Guillermo still loved flying. It was as close as he had come to feeling like a real vampire—and he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed spending time like this with Nandor, just the two of them, miles away from the bickering of the other Staten Island vampires.

Eventually, Nandor lands on the top of a random building, gently helping Guillermo find his footing. He steadies him at his hips and Guillermo tries not to get too hung-up on the fact that Nandor had seemed reluctant to let him go.

The vampire clears his throat, motioning to the view before them. “It’s a nice night, isn’t it?”

Guillermo steps closer to the edge, marveling at the stretch of city lights before them. It’s beautiful. He really feels as if he’s at the heart of Staten Island, the pulse of the city thrumming underneath his feet.

“It really is.”

The silence that develops between them is comfortable. Guillermo shivers at a harsh gust of wind, suddenly wishing he had the chance to grab his coat before Nandor had whisked them away.

As if reading his mind, Nandor gives a disapproving sigh. “You should have dressed for the weather, Guillermo.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be carried off from the front porch. I was just answering the door,” Guillermo replies, deadpan.

“You are lucky I am so accommodating,” Nandor begins, ignoring Guillermo’s comment entirely. He fiddles with the clasp of his cloak before throwing it over the human’s shoulders. “There. Is that better?”

Guillermo can only nod, cheeks flushed, not trusting his voice as the vampire finishes draping the cloak over him, making sure the clasps are fastened tightly.

“Good. I do not want you freezing to death. That would be very inconveniencing.”

Guillermo knows Nandor well enough now to know what the vampire really means. His words were so often a shield to hide his true emotions… but Guillermo had over a decade of experience deciphering just what Nandor was trying to say.

“Thank you, Nandor,” he replies, beaming. He wraps the cloak further around himself, relishing in the warmth of the thick fabric and the familiar scent of the vampire.

“…You’ll need a cloak of your own once I’ve turned you. Mine are much too big for you.”

At his words, Guillermo feels his heart quicken. It had been ages since Nandor had so much as acknowledged that he was planning to eventually turn Guillermo. 

Unfortunately, the vampire mistakes his increase in heart rate as a fear response. He waves a hand. “Oh, do not worry. I am not planning on turning you right now. It would be very unhygienic to do it here on the roof of some random building.”

“Right. Of course…” Guillermo trails, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice.

Nandor sighs, reaching out hesitantly. He eventually places his palm over Guillermo’s right shoulder, dark eyes bewitching as they reflect the silver light of the moon. “I know it’s selfish of me, but I’m not ready to turn you just yet. Things will be very different once you become a vampire.”

A brief flicker of understanding crosses Guillermo’s face. Nandor was afraid—of what, Guillermo wasn’t sure, but he could sense the underlying anxiety in the vampire’s words.

“I’ll wait,” Guillermo begins, smiling softly. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise. There’s no one else I’d want to turn me but you.”

Nandor smiles back warmly. As they stand there together, watching the city come to life underneath them, Nandor does not remove his hand from Guillermo’s shoulder. He rubs his thumb in soothing circles and, somehow, it feels like an unspoken promise.

**

Back at the house, Black Peter sits demurely on an armchair, playing cards gripped in his mouth. He bleats excitedly, chewing on one of the cards.

“Okay, I’m all-in,” the goat announces.

Nadja, Laszlo, and Colin Robinson all share a dubious look.

How did they end up inviting a goat to play poker with them again?


	22. Ether

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Guillermo and Nandor have secretly been communicating through the ether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay hear me out... i know that nandor implies in s1 that he doesn't communicate w/ guillermo through the ether... but 1) we all know the vamps lie/exaggerate when the cameras are rolling & 2) this was a fun idea that wouldn't leave my head so we're just gonna pretend this doesn't contradict canon as much as it does. or you can just think of it as an AU lol

.

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It’s still a strange thrill, the way Nandor is able to creep into his mind unbidden, slipping silently through the cracked door of his consciousness. He had made a home in the shadow of his thoughts now that Guillermo had welcomed him there, a presence that he could physically feel in the gentle pressure that builds just behind his eyes as he closes them. If he focuses hard enough, he can see a murky image of the vampire splayed out on the chaise lounge, fur blankets strewn over his broad chest.

 _Guillermo?_ The voice echoes, hesitant. _You did not forget to pick up the ocean pens, did you?_

One street away from the house, arms laden with plastic bags, Guillermo chuckles to himself, ignoring the strange stare he gets from the lone man walking his dog in the dead of night.

 _Tide pens,_ he corrects silently in his mind, no longer needing to speak aloud for Nandor to hear him through the ether. They had been communicating this way for years now and in this time, Guillermo had learned the subtle art of using his thoughts as a bridge to Nandor’s mind. Their connection was strong but inevitably one-sided given that Guillermo was still only human, unable to initiate communication through the ether unless Nandor had already slipped into his mind.

_Yes, yes, like I said. So you got them, Mr. Sarcasm?_

Guillermo rolls his eyes good-naturedly. _Of course. I’m almost home._

 _Good. Very good,_ Nandor purrs. _And you remember that you promised to help me learn to navigate the Tickie-Tockies tonight, yes?_

_Yes, master. Don’t worry. I know you like those—_

_Twilight tickie-tockies,_ Nandor interrupts. They’re funny. _Oh, and the ones with the baby farm animals. The little baby goats are just so cute._

**

There were very little boundaries between himself and Nandor—but that was the nature of the vampire-familiar relationship. Or so Guillermo had assumed.

“Wait, Nandor does what?” Celeste crows, brushing back her sweat-soaked hair as she leaned against the white van, spade left unattended beside the half-filled grave.

Guillermo gives a grunt of exertion, toppling more dirt into the hole. He looks over his shoulder wearily. He knew that tone all too well. Celeste was excited, which meant she wasn’t going to let the conversation drop.

“…He talks to me through the ether?” he says like a question, watching Celeste’s expression. Sure enough, her lips pull into a startled ‘O’ before she squeals.

“Guillermo, you have no idea how big that is for a vampire!”

“What do you mean?”

Celeste gives him an exasperated look. “Look, vamps use the ether,” she pauses to make air quotes, “for two reasons and two reasons only. The first reason, which I’m sure you’re aware of, is to hypnotize humans. To make them do whatever they want them to do at the sound of their voice.”

“And reason number two?” Guillermo asks, pausing from burying the final body of the night. Celeste’s master had a voracious appetite despite still being a physical child. Well, a physical undead child.

“To communicate with each other through the ether. Guillermo, don’t you see? Nandor doesn’t see you as just another human—he isn’t hypnotizing you or forcing you to do things.” Celeste’s lips curl into a smile. “It’s almost like he sees you as a vampire already. Or at least treats you like one.”

At her words, he nearly loses his grip on the shovel.

Celeste laughs, tipping her head back. “Oh, this is great, Guillermo! I think you’ll be getting turned sooner than you think! So don’t forget me when you get your fangs, m’kay?”

Guillermo laughs along good-naturedly, nodding. He tries not to get his hopes up, but the seed has already been planted. Maybe, just maybe, Nandor did plan on turning him, he thinks.

On the anniversary of his tenth year as Nandor’s familiar with nothing but a glitter portrait to show for all his hard work, Guillermo spends an unbearable amount of time turning his conversation with Celeste over and over again in his head. He wonders where he went wrong, how he could have ever thought that Nandor was planning to turn him when the vampire still evaded the question despite it being the metaphorical elephant in the room. When he goes to sleep at dawn, tears staining his pillow, he vows to never get his hopes up again.

**

Nadja and Laszlo are chasing each other around the house… again. Guillermo had watched this specific play thousands of times, knew the vampires’ lines by heart, was already cataloguing the cost of damages that would inevitably occur when Nadja threw Laszlo through one of the windows. At this point, their antics were almost endearing. Almost.

Nandor, who would usually at least feign an attempt at separating the two before they brought the house down, had merely gone to sit in one of the armchairs in the hall with a sigh, apparently not in the mood to contribute to his housemates’ horseplay.

When Guillermo moves to sit in the armchair adjacent to him, the vampire gives an exaggerated eye-roll.

_Eughh… how long do you think their lover’s spat will last this time?_

Guillermo schools his features, feigning interest in his phone. _Well, given that Laszlo had to have his genitals forcibly removed from the taxidermy fox’s mouth for the second time this month, I’d say we’re in for at least another two hours of this._

As if on cue, Laszlo came running towards them, arms flailing.

“Darling, I swear it won’t happen again—“

Nadja hissed, cutting him off with a well-placed jab of a sword.

Laszlo ducks just in time, the sword wedging itself deeply into the drywall.

 _I just got that wall fixed last week,_ Guillermo laments.

Nandor makes a similar despondent noise, the sound echoing in the depths of Guillermo’s mind. _You think that is bad? Nadja has taken one of my swords again! I’ll have to spend hours sharpening it on the whetstone!_

A painting drops with a loud crash as Nadja begins to crawl up the wall, reaching for the vampire that was currently floating off towards the ceiling.

“Get back down here you bloody coward! Let me rip you to shreds!”

“Now, now, Nadja dear, we’ve talked about your bouts of homicidal rage. Give it five minutes and—“

Laszlo yelps as Nadja grabs hold of his ankle, tugging him harshly to the ground. She clambers over his supine form, fangs bared, sclera black and irises glowing, and Laszlo merely stares up at her with an open expression of awe.

“My love, this reminds me of when you turned me. You look just as beautiful now as you did all those years ago.”

Nandor and Guillermo share a knowing look. It was obvious that Nadja’s ire was transforming into something else.

_Guillermo, I don’t want to see them fornicating out here in the foyer. I think I’ll retire to my coffin early._

Wordlessly, the pair departs just as Nadja and Laszlo begin kissing, hands groping at each other’s clothes.

**

As Guillermo settles into his mother’s house, he expects to hear from Nandor, but days pass and the vampire does not knock at the door of his mind.

There’s an unfamiliar emptiness now, as if Nandor had taken up a physical part of his consciousness. Perhaps he had, Guillermo reasons, since he can’t stop thinking about him.

Every time he sees something on TV that he knows Nandor would love, he instinctively tries to contact the vampire through the ether—not that Nandor would be able to hear his one-sided thoughts. That wasn’t how the ether worked. It’s a bit sad, really, but he keeps up a running dialogue in his mind anyway, finds himself prattling about this and that, if only to fill the ache in his heart that came with no longer being at the vampire’s side.

He knows he should be happy to finally be rid of his last real connection to the Staten Island house, but it only adds to his grief. It feels like a part of him has been forcibly severed and though he knows logically that he was the one holding the scissors, that doesn’t make the pain any less real.

**

Back at the Staten Island house, Nandor stares blankly at the inside of his coffin in a mix of tiredness and restlessness. He wants to sleep, but his thoughts keep circling around his familiar—ex-familiar, he reminds himself, frown deepening. The urge to reach out, to use the ether as a bridge between himself and Guillermo, grows with every passing night. But he resists. He had already chased after Guillermo once; he does not think he could do it again without having to face the depth of his feelings for the human who had so easily slipped past the centuries-old walls of his heart.

So the vampire continues to stare at the coffin lid, memorizing the uneven patterns within the whorls of wood, and tries not to think about Guillermo. When he eventually falls asleep, he dreams of Guillermo pressing a stake against his heart. He doesn’t flinch when the wood tears through sinew and flesh. It feels like an omen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a 24 yr old, tik-tok makes no sense to me but i'm thrilled it exists if solely for the cute animal vids & twilight tik-toks


	23. Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor confronts Guillermo about whether or not he plans on leaving again for a third time.

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.

Guillermo ties the green apron around his waist and even though he’s been working at Panera for at least half a year now, he can’t help but feel as if he’s putting on a costume. It’s like he’s living someone else’s life. Maybe that’s how all nineteen year olds feel, he reasons, ignoring the small voice in the back of his mind that grows louder with every day, the voice that tells him this is all wrong and that he is meant for more. 

When he’s not actively interacting with a customer, he finds his thoughts circling his favorite supernatural creature: the vampire. He knows on a logical level that vampires don’t exist, but that doesn’t stop the yearning to be one. Guillermo still isn’t sure _why_ he wants to be a vampire, why he feels most like himself when he has a pair of fangs in his mouth, but if he were to hazard a guess, he’d say that becoming a vampire is a little like wish fulfillment for him.

He’s never felt dangerous. While his classmates had grown taller, their features sharpening through puberty, Guillermo was still stuck with the same baby face he had before high school. Minus being able to grow facial hair and a few years of terrible acne, it hadn’t felt like he really went through puberty at all. Like everything in life, he felt miles behind his peers.

Perhaps it was worrying that he wanted to feel more dangerous. He would never describe himself as a violent person—he was more apt to run at the sight of danger than face it, after all. But still, there were moments where his imagination ran wild, ushering in images of bloodied corpses and dying gasps. He has no idea where these thoughts are coming from aside from the few horror video games he plays with Jeremy.

Instead of dwelling on the reasons for his newfound desire for bloodshed, Guillermo buckles down and works harder. He starts picking up extra shifts, enrolls in online classes, anything to drive away any thoughts on the supernatural. He needed to grow up, he reasons. He wasn’t a child anymore and he was much too old to be clinging to an impossible dream.

Then, one night, a man in a long black cape steps into the store and Guillermo’s entire life trajectory careens off its orbit. Had it been any vampire aside from Nandor, it was likely that Guillermo would have needed to defend himself and, in doing so, he would have learned of his heritage ten years earlier.

But that isn’t what happens. Guillermo meets a man who is undeniably a _vampire_ and he gives up everything—his job, his friends, his normal human life—for the chance to be immortal.

**

When Guillermo realizes that _The Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area_ is actually a front for a vampire hunting group, he wants to laugh at the irony of it all. For so long he had been sure that his destiny was to be a vampire.

But no—of course not. The universe had been playing a cruel joke on him. Guillermo de la Cruz, a human who had spent the better part of a decade as a vampire’s familiar, was, in actuality, designed to kill vampires. It was writ in his genetic code, passed down like a recessive trait that sprang up every few generations.

He thought he had been masquerading as a human and that being a vampire would fix him, make everything in his life click together like the last missing puzzle piece. Instead, what comes naturally to him feels seemingly more monstrous.

The weight of a stake in his hand, the feeling of the wood against his fingertips, the way he doesn’t even have to think to find the center of a vampire’s heart… it all feels so _natural_. Like he had been doing it for years rather than months. He doesn’t want it to, but it does.

In the early dawn hours when the house is still, Guillermo often finds himself pacing the halls. There’s a restless twitch in his hands, a dull hum in his ears—he’s intimately aware of the fact that there are vampires in the house, their presence alerting the once dormant sirens in his brain. Where there was once a comfortable familiarity to the undead, there is now a sharp, jagged spike of wrongness. It’s all in his blood, in the way he runs himself ragged with chores if only to silence the urge to throw open the curtains and let the vampires—his vampires, his family of choice—burst into flame.

He knows how easy it would be. He knows that Nandor would be the easiest to kill. It’s heartbreaking how much the vampire still trusted him. How he could see Guillermo slaughter an entire theatre of vampires and still want him at his side, would still want him to hold his hand as he stepped into and out of his coffin. If he knew the thoughts that circled his head like vultures, predicting a bloodbath every time he gripped a wooden object, he was sure that Nandor would be disgusted. Repulsed. Perhaps even furious.

“Guillermo?” Nandor asks from within his coffin, stirring Guillermo out of his reverie. It was well after dawn, but Guillermo had found himself pacing around Nandor’s coffin, dusting and cleaning despite that being no longer part of his job description. He was their bodyguard now, not a familiar—and also a friend, though only Nandor had admitted to that.

“Oh, sorry,” Guillermo begins, toying with the feathers of the feather duster. “Am I making too much noise? I can leave—“

“No, that’s not it,” Nandor interrupts. “I was just… thinking. You would tell us if you were not happy here, yes? I would like some warning if you choose to leave me again.”

“I’m happy,” Guillermo quips back much too quickly. He winces. “Well, I’m getting there. Slowly. I’m not miserable. Why do you think I’d be leaving anytime soon?”

“You cleaned like this the last time you left. Everything was spotless. It was like you had never existed at all, aside from the letter you left.”

Guillermo doesn’t know how to reply at first. He rests his hands on the edge of the coffin, bowing his head against the cold wood, eyes fluttering closed.

When he speaks, it feels as holy as a confession. He hadn’t done a confession in a long time, hadn’t even really stepped foot in a church aside from Madeline’s funeral, but he finds his words easily—it is the only truth that matters at the moment. The only thing he could confess. “I don’t think I could ever leave forever. This house is a part of me. You, Nadja, Laszlo, even Colin Robinson—are a part of me.”

Nandor’s answering silence washes over him and he knows then that no matter where his life leads him, he’ll always think of the vampires as family. Hopefully that will be enough to still his hand in the future, he thinks just as the coffin creaks open, a cold hand wrapping around his wrist.

“I don’t want you to leave again,” a small, quiet voice echoes from within the dark of the coffin. 

“I won’t,” Guillermo replies. He wants it to be the truth.

When he feels the vampire’s cold lips press against his wrist, fangs gliding harmlessly over the fragile skin there, he goes as docile as a lamb. This is Nandor, he reminds himself, thoughts of _safety_ and _home_ echoing in his skull along with an undeniable sense of trust as the silence envelops them. It is so quiet that Guillermo can hear his heart beating in his chest, the ancient blood of vampire hunters coursing steadily through his veins.

Guillermo’s skin remains unmarred as the vampire hums low in his throat. There is a final press of his lips to the thrum of Guillermo's pulse before he lets go of his wrist. The coffin shuts quietly a moment later.

“Goodnight, Guillermo. You should get some rest.”

“Goodnight, Nandor,” he replies, feeling a little lighter than before, some of his anxieties quelled for the time being. There would be time to replay the interaction later, to run it through his head on repeat, to dissect it from hundreds of angles in an attempt to understand just how Nandor felt about him, but for now, Guillermo only had the energy to go to his room and sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't wait for s3 to explore guillermo's conflicted feelings even more... i, for one, live for angst in my funny lil vampire shows


	24. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor finally gets the chance to give away the license plate keychain.

.

.

Steve is, for all intents and purposes, a fairly average guy. Or at least he thought he was. After all, he was just another thirty-something year old bachelor stumbling through life one impulsive decision at a time.

His thirties, though, had felt different for him. He had learned to mellow out a bit. In fact, he had recently come to realize that he was actually a homebody at heart. If left to his own devices, Steve was more than happy to spend the night alone in his cramped studio apartment, a far more peaceful venture than what he usually experienced in his years of living with raucous roommates.

It was nice. Peaceful. He relished his Friday nights after work, his weekly routine of walking to the Thai place a few blocks down from his apartment and ordering enough food to feed a family of four was a genuine highlight of his otherwise monotonous work week. This night, however, would remain as a centerpiece in his mind for years to come.

He should have known better, but he still kept wearing an old pair of basketball shorts that had a sizeable hole in the left pocket. Not thinking of anything else but the amount of pad thai he was looking forward to eating, Steve dropped his keys in his right pocket and his wallet in his left. This was all well and good up until the moment he felt someone tap his shoulder.

“Excuse me,” an accented voice spoke up.

Steve whirled around to see a man who was dressed as if it were Halloween, his long red cape just barely skirting above the ground. He was peering at an open wallet, obviously looking directly at Steve’s driver’s license. All at once, the stranger’s face brightened, lips pulling into an impossibly wide grin. It would have been almost endearing, if it weren’t for the way his expression highlighted his abnormally sharp canines.

“ _Steve!_ You’re Steve!” he crowed, looking beyond thrilled with the realization that Steve’s name was, in fact, Steve. “I’ve been waiting for you, Steve!”

“Umm… I’m sorry but do I know you?”

Just what was going on? He was sure he’d remember a guy that looked like a vampire. Maybe he was an old work colleague that tripped into a rather intense Goth phase?

The man shakes his head. “No, we have not met before. But I have been searching for you, Steve.” He grimaces then, expression souring. “Okay, maybe that is coming out too creepy. What I mean is that I have been searching for a _Steve_ for some time now. It is a good thing you dropped your coin pouch.”

Steve tried not to dwell too long on why the mysterious stranger had called his wallet a _coin pouch._ The man had an accent that he couldn’t quite place; it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to assume that he just didn’t know the English word for wallet. When Steve takes his wallet back, careful to slip it into his right pocket with his keys, he can’t help but match the other man’s giddy grin with his own. There was such a genuine look of excitement in the stranger’s eyes that it seemed downright cruel to not at least share a smile in return.

“You must come with me at once, Steve. I have a gift for you, but it is back at my home.”

It was a rather bold request from a stranger, insofar as Steve has personally experienced. His mind flickers to thoughts of the black market trade, wondering if his night would actually end with him losing a kidney.

The man, noticing Steve’s hesitance, holds his hands up in a placating manner. “I am not saying this to kidnap, kill, or eat you,” he begins, which only makes the warning bells in Steve’s mind ring even louder. “You do look tasty, but I already ate earlier.”

Well, that was almost a backhanded compliment, wasn’t it? Steve hadn’t been in the dating scene for a while, having only recently broken up with his girlfriend after five years together. Maybe this was part of the man’s shtick? Hamming up the whole undead creature of the night angle. It was actually fairly effective, in Steve’s opinion, since he had actually managed to capture his attention. The vampire thing was weird, sure, but there was still something oddly charming about him. He was as unique and different as people came in Staten Island—almost a direct antithesis to Steve’s own humble life. Maybe that’s what he needed, he reasoned. To live a little more dangerously. And if a stranger wearing a cape asked him to come back to his house, who was he to say no?

“…Sure. I’ll go with you," he says, cringing at himself. _What the fuck was he doing?_ It was like he wanted to be killed. 

“Great!” The man pauses, face suddenly serious. “You are not afraid of heights, are you?”

**

Okay, so vampires were _definitely_ real. And Nandor (who introduced himself as _Nandor the Relentless_ after plucking Steve off his feet) was a vampire—a vampire that was carrying him through the air as they _flew_ towards his house. Steve is immediately thankful that he hadn’t gotten the chance to eat dinner before he was whisked away.

**

The house looks exactly like what Steve thought a vampire’s house would look like… minus the vulva topiaries. It’s actually so vampire-esque that he wonders how the neighbors haven’t started asking questions. Then again, this is _Staten Island_ ; you could probably be burying a body in your backyard and your neighbor would rationalize it as burying a dead animal or something, if only to not have to make the effort to intervene.

Nandor catches Steve looking at the topiaries and grimaces. “Sorry about that. One of my housemates, Laszlo, is a bit of a pervert.”

“That’s okay. I had a roommate who kept his really weird porn out in the open. These topiaries are actually pretty tasteful in comparison.”

The vampire waves his hand. “Oh, and just so you know, we don’t get human guests that are not food all that often, so try and ignore the others if they are around.”

When they enter the foyer, it is blessedly free of other vampires. Steve was still reeling from the realization that vampires did exist and that he was willingly following one into their crypt—he was good at schooling his features, but inwardly there was a part of his brain that was screaming at him for not running out the door when he had the chance. The other, louder part of his brain was wondering what sort of gift a strange vampire could have for him. He hoped that the old adage was true: that curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Careful to avoid tripping on the large number of old rugs that covered the floor, Steve followed Nandor towards an open door in the hallway. Beside the door there was a large nightstand covered with candles and melted wax. A gold frame containing a painting of a man that greatly resembled Nandor hung above the nightstand, drawing Steve’s gaze briefly. The vampire was dressed for battle in a suit of chainmail, riding upon a white horse.

“Oh, that is a painting I had done after one of my longer campaigns,” Nandor said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “My horse, John, looks rather spectacular here, doesn’t he?”

Steve nods. It was a fairly good rendering of the horse. And of Nandor himself.

Once inside the vampire’s _crypt_ , which Steve realized rather quickly was just a bedroom, but instead of a bed, there was an ornate coffin, the human hovered near the door.

Nandor raised a brow, motioning towards one of the armchairs pressed against the wall. “You may sit, if you like. The chairs are not merely for decoration.”

Rather sheepishly, Steve slid into the chair, drumming his fingers against the armrests. It was while he was watching Nandor dig through a wooden chest filled with miscellaneous trinkets and letters that Steve realized just how underdressed he was. Everything in the house had screamed of vintage opulence and Nandor was dressed in layers of rich, embroidered fabric—and here he was, dressed in basketball shorts, a grey hoodie, and scuffed-up sneakers. In his defense, however, it wasn’t like he was expecting to meet a vampire and have his entire worldview upturned in the span of hours. If he had known he was going to meet a handsome vampire that mysteriously had a gift specifically for him, he would have dressed for the occasion. Like he would at least be wearing pants, for instance.

“Here it is!” Nandor exclaimed, holding a little keychain. He placed it in Steve’s palm with a fanged grin.

Steve inspects the keychain and chuckles. It was a tacky license plate keychain with his name on it. Definitely not the sort of gift one would expect from a vampire. It’s endearing, really.

Steve cranes his neck, studying the vampire’s giddy expression. “So where did you get this?”

“From a necromancer in his little hut of wares. For free. _Gratis_. After he failed to properly resurrect my housemates’ human familiar. Turns out, he used the wrong incantation spell or some shit.”

“That’s… a lot to process,” Steve admitted, attempting to follow Nandor’s train of thought. “So necromancers are real? And you can bring people back from the dead? And what’s a familiar exactly?”

Nandor wrinkles his nose. “Those are questions that have complicated answers and it’s getting pretty late for a human. Why don’t we shelve those questions for another time?”

Glancing at his watch, Steve is surprised to see that a good deal of time had passed. Between the flying and chatting with Nandor, it was already almost midnight and he was really starting to get peckish.

It’s a bit bold of him—bolder than he usually is, but it wasn’t like he was going to get another chance at this. He might as well try and shoot his shot; the worst-case scenario being that Nandor would be offended and maybe try to kill and or eat him. But he didn’t really get that sort of feeling from the vampire—he was certainly dangerous, but not dangerous to him. At least not now.

“Do you think we could… meet again? Maybe go out for dinner sometime?”

Nandor shakes his head and Steve immediately feels his heart drop. “Oh, I cannot eat human food. Unless you are a budding murderer, I don’t think you’d like a _dinner date_.” The vampire brightens. “But we can do something else? If you’d like.”

Steve nods, still a little shocked that everything was going so well. “Yeah. Would a movie work better?”

A look of almost childish glee crosses Nandor’s face. “ _Yes,_ ” he near purrs. “I have been wanting to go to the cinema for awhile now, but most of my housemates are party poops. They do not want to see any of the movies I want to watch.”

Steve laughs. “Well, I’m not too picky so I was going to let you choose anyway. Do you have a phone number? Or some way for me to reach you again?”

“We have a landline, actually.”

Steve quickly pulls his phone from the pocket of his hoodie, ready to type in the vampire’s number. It is then that Nandor suddenly raises a finger and heads towards the door.

“Guillermo!” Nandor called out, sticking his head out of the room to amplify his yelling. “Guillermo, what is our phone number again?”

**

Steve wasn’t entirely sure what had transpired over the course of the night, but it seemed like he had managed to snag himself a date with a vampire. His closeted fourteen-year old self would have been shaking at the prospect. Maybe it was time he actually went and read a vampire book that wasn’t _Dracula_ (something he read back in high-school because it was required for a class), Steve thought, rifling through his pantry for something to eat.

As he settled onto his sofa with a bowl of cereal, he pulled out the _Steve_ license plate keychain with a grin. He had already attached his keys to the keychain while back at the house, but the sight of the gift from Nandor still felt a little unreal. Perhaps he’d wake up in the morning and find that this had all been some wild dream his sleep-deprived brain had conjured up, but for now, Steve was actually glad that he had dropped his wallet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 3 big brain thought: nandor going on dates & ending up meeting a guy named steve—thus giving him the chance to finally give away that steve keychain
> 
> also pls imagine a 100% normal dude just getting roped into the staten island vampires’ lives by sheer coincidence. like guillermo obv does not count because he loves vampires… but someone who has zero real preconceived notions on what vampires are supposed to be like. all the while guillermo is inwardly screaming bc how do these totally normal guys (ex: topher) end up being so well-liked by vampires??


	25. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor has a secret he’s been harboring from Guillermo. In which Nandor wasn’t entirely truthful with Simon the Devious when it comes to whether or not he still finds Guillermo’s blood tempting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love nandor but u cannot tell me that with how every single vampire seemingly salivates over guillermo’s scent, that nandor really sees him as ‘the last donut in the display cabinet.’ like bro u are so obviously lying… so yeah this takes place sometime between 2x07 & 2x10.
> 
> also this chapter got really long somehow?? like it's long enough to be its own fic honestly but i'm putting it here anyway lol

.

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The scent of blood drifts through the fancy room in an almost palpable haze. Reflexively, Nandor drops the book onto the velvet cushion beside him, fingers digging briefly into the sofa. When he pulls away, he realizes with a creeping sense of shame that he had gripped the underside of the chaise lounge hard enough to leave visible finger-shaped grooves in the wood.

There was a secret he’d been harboring for some time now from Guillermo.

He hadn’t been entirely truthful to Simon when he said that it had been difficult to resist eating Guillermo. Nandor had implied that it had only been difficult when Guillermo was a newly minted familiar—but that wasn’t the actual case. Though he hid it much better now thanks to over a decade of experience in curbing his primordial reaction to Guillermo’s blood, Nandor could not deny that he still felt an alarmingly heavy desire to drink from the human.

“I can smell it—Guillermo is bleeding,” Nandor mutters aloud in a sour tone, catching Colin Robinson’s gaze as the man peers over the newspaper.

“You know,” the energy vampire begins, and already Nandor can feel a headache stirring at the base of his brain. Vampirism absolved him of many mortal aches and pains, but energy-feeding induced migraines were still something he could unfortunately experience. “Of all the sensory modalities studied in humans, their sense of smell is the only sense that doesn’t have a gatekeeper. Everything else—sight, sound, touch, balance, pain—has to go through the thalamus before reaching the cerebral cortex. Not smell, though. Maybe that’s why scents are so often tied to memory—especially older memories.”

“I do not care, Colin Robinson,” Nandor parrots out automatically before he actually processes the energy vampire’s words. “Wait, so you are saying that certain scents can bring back forgotten memories?”

Colin Robinson blinks owlishly. “Do I look like a scientist to you? I just learned that fact from Wikipedia.”

“Well go and ask your friend Wiki Pedia if they happen to know the answer to my question.”

With a sigh, the other man slips his phone out of his pocket and begins tapping on the screen with his thumbs. Nandor watches with interest, grateful for the distraction. Anything was better than thinking about the scent of warm blood that still lingered deliciously in the air.

_Guillermo,_ he thinks, almost voicing his complaint aloud, but merely grounds his teeth instead. _Always so clumsy—it’s like he wants to be eaten or something! Yeesh!_

He’d have to chastise his familiar later for his recklessness. Already, Nandor can imagine exactly what he would say to the human once he got all that dreaded bleeding taken care of.

Something like: “ _Guillermo, your bleeding is very distracting! If you have to bleed, do so outside of the house so I do not have to smell it!”_

As if on cue, Nandor hears the familiar scuff of Guillermo’s shoes against the wooden floors, followed by a _pitter-patter_ and a curse. The scent of fresh, virginal blood grows stronger.

“One moment, Colin Robinson. I need to do a check-up on Guillermo.” Nandor rose from the sofa, hoping his expression doesn’t betray the cold rush of anxiety he suddenly felt. How much blood could humans safely lose again? It had been so long since he had to worry about such things.

The energy vampire quirks a brow in suspicion. “Okay, Nandor. Just make sure you _only_ do a check-up. I don’t think I need to remind you of how bad you are at self-control.”

“That was _one_ time!” Nandor hissed. Did he really need to bring that up now? _Fucking guy!_

“And that’s how we lost the familiar before Guillermo. You drained that poor guy a week into being your familiar and all he had done was prick his finger on a thorn.”

“I am not eating Guillermo,” Nandor replied stiffly, stalking over to the door. “If I wanted to do that, I would have done it ages ago.”

He slammed the door shut behind him, only wincing slightly at the loud bang before striding forward. From there it is easy enough to follow the scent of blood, imagining a red mist trailing up the staircase and towards the upstairs bathroom door.

A few drops of crimson on the last step catch his eye and if it were any other virginal human, Nandor would not hesitate to swoop down and press his tongue against the floor, to sate the sharp blade of hunger that has gutted him ever since he became a vampire. But it is Guillermo, his familiar—he falters mid-thought, suddenly unsure. Guillermo was a familiar, yes, but there were plenty of vampires who fed from their servants. Nandor had done so with a handful of his familiars over the centuries, chalking it up as just another duty they were expected to uphold.

But never Guillermo. Even in the throes of near-death, he hadn’t thought to ask Guillermo for his blood—it had been Nadja in a brilliant but last-ditch effort to save them all that had inquired about eating his familiar. So of course Nandor had played along, baring his fangs and asking rather petulantly for Guillermo to come over and put his neck in his mouth.

He still wasn’t sure what he would have done if Guillermo had the strength to reach him back then.

Stepping carefully over the blood splatter, Nandor knocks gently at the door and takes in a deep, unnecessary breath. Concern edges into his tone, realizing that Guillermo is, undoubtedly, losing a substantial deal of blood. “Guillermo? Are you alright in there?”

“I-I’m fine, Master! Nothing’s wrong!” Guillermo says, but his muffled reply does not assuage Nandor’s worries.

The vampire wrenches the door open a moment later, freezing at the sight of blood dripping sluggishly down the front of Guillermo’s sweater. He swears loudly, shutting the door behind himself and locking it before meeting his familiar’s panicked gaze.

“What the fuck is going on?” Nandor near growls, eyes flashing gold. Anger courses through his veins like a wildfire as he cups his familiar’s face in his hands before he can stop himself, carefully tilting Guillermo’s head to better inspect the wound. Despite the messy rivulets that paint the human’s neck, Nandor immediately finds the bloodied outline of twin pinpricks. “It looks like a vampire took a bite out of you! Who did this?”

“I-I don’t know…” Guillermo trails, shaking as Nandor releases his grip, hands balling at his sides. He’s angrier than he’s been in centuries, even angrier than he had been the moment he found out that humans had somehow built little rockets to travel to the moon in 1969—the year he had fallen into a vampiric hibernation to heal after accidentally burning himself due to a pesky candle mishap.

“How am I to get revenge on the vampire who hurt you if you do not know who did it?” The age-old ache to spill blood was stirring at the mere thought of someone harming his familiar—vampire or not, they had wronged him, wronged Guillermo, and they could not be allowed to live after dishonoring them both.

Nandor doesn’t know if it’s from the blood loss or the adrenaline finally leaving his system, but all at once his familiar is leaning into him, sweat-streaked curls pressing against his shoulder. Warm hands digs into the fabric of his shirt as Guillermo clings to him desperately, panicked breaths escaping his lips. Nandor can feel his heartbeat through the woolen fabric of Guillermo’s sweater, its quickened pace slowing as the vampire hesitantly brings his arms around him.

Whatever retort he had on the tip of his tongue dies at the sight of his familiar’s tear-stained face peering up at him with such implicit trust that it nearly aches to look into his eyes.

_If he only knew,_ Nandor thinks, swallowing thickly with guilt. _If he only knew how close I have come to bringing my teeth to his neck in the past…_

“Guillermo, we need to stop the bleeding,” Nandor murmurs, allowing himself a few more moments of gentleness, fingers inching delicately up to Guillermo’s shoulders, skimming over the still wet blood that seeped through the sweater. A brief flare of hunger burned in his chest at the sight of blood on his fingertips but it extinguishes the moment Guillermo tips his head to the side, exposing the wound again to Nandor’s onyx gaze.

Nandor can’t help but wince at the sight of Guillermo’s mangled neck, at the quickly forming bruises that pulse just below the surface. Unlike Laszlo and Nadja, Nandor was, or at least attempted to be, a clean eater. He ate his victims as civilly as he could, one viper-fast bite to the smooth column of their neck, no other theatrics needed as he drank his fill. Perhaps a little blood would be found in his beard and, if the victim struggled, there was potential for blood on his collar or cape, but he otherwise kept himself fairly clean. He was seven hundred and fifty eight, after all, how embarrassing would it be to keep ruining his clothes with bloodstains?

“Could… could you help me, _please_?” Guillermo asks, voice soft and unsure. His hands are still trembling against Nandor’s chest and it becomes apparent to the vampire that Guillermo is in no shape to dress his own wound.

“Sit,” Nandor says, though comes out as less of a command and more of a plea as he turns around to sift through the first-aid kit that Guillermo had laid out by the sink.

He picks out a large, square bandage, gauze, and an antibacterial ointment before swiping up a white washcloth and running it under the tap. Once the washcloth is adequately soaked, he looks to Guillermo. His familiar had already sat down onto the toilet lid, looking suddenly sheepish as he toyed with the buttons of his shirt.

Wordlessly, Nandor approaches and reaches for the hem of Guillermo’s sweater.

A flustered look crosses Guillermo’s face. “W-wait, I can—“

Nandor swats lightly at Guillermo’s hand. “No, none of that shit. You are all tremble-y and weak. I will do this for you.”

When he reaches for Guillermo’s sweater the second time, he isn’t met with any resistance. The blue sweater is tugged off and over the human’s head, revealing the blood-stained white button-up underneath. Nandor unbuttons the first four buttons, leaving his familiar with some modesty. He knew how unusually bashful humans of this century were and Guillermo was no different. In fact, the most skin he had ever seen from Guillermo up until now was when he rolled up his sleeves to wash the dishes and goblets.

So now, seeing his familiar like this, blood covering his neck and upper chest… it stirred some rather conflicting feelings. He wanted to tend to Guillermo’s wound, this was true, but a small, dark part of himself wanted to reach out and let his tongue dip against the human’s steady pulse as he lapped at the slowly drying blood there. It was selfish and a tad bit shameful, but it was the truth. He was a vampire—the hunger would always be there no matter how much he secretly wished otherwise. It was a part of him, as intertwined with his body as his shadow was.

“Are you okay, Master?” Guillermo asks, breaking Nandor from his reverie. His expression is one of concern. It twists the blade of guilt even deeper into the vampire’s gut.

“I’m fine,” Nandor replies automatically, relaxing his iron-tight grip on the washcloth. “Hold still.”

Guillermo lets out a soft hiss at the touch of the washcloth but remains still, leaning forward as Nandor continues his ministrations. The washcloth is soon dyed a pale red, soaked with Guillermo’s blood, and Nandor has to return to the sink basin to wring it out. Now a light pink, Nandor runs the washcloth underneath the water one more time before returning to clean away the last of the blood, moving his hand down the front of Guillermo’s chest.

Guillermo squirms at this, a huff of laughter escaping him at the feather-light touch of the washcloth. The sound unspools some of the heavy tension in Nandor’s shoulders; if his little familiar was laughing so freely, than surely he hadn’t lost enough blood to warrant a trip to the hospital. Nandor didn’t like hospitals—you never knew if some nosy human was going to try and take your temperature or something.

_“Sir, I’m sorry but you have a temperature of 65.5F! Something is very obviously wrong with you!”_

_Nandor had sneered at that. “No, that is a perfectly normal temperature for a perfectly normal human person. You are the one with an abnormal temperature. Yeesh!”_

_Laszlo had to step in and hypnotize the nurse, but it had all worked out in the end—Guillermo had gotten his allergy medicines and Nandor had gotten a few blood bags to keep in the icebox for an emergency._

Returning to the present, Nandor realizes rather jarringly that he is almost done cleaning up all the blood. He fiddles with the ointment, wrinkling his nose at the strong, herbal scent that comes from the paste. He applies it liberally to the wound before drying off his hands and grabbing the rectangular band-aid. As gently as he can, Nandor covers the wound with the band-aid.

It’s with some reluctance that he pulls away, standing abruptly. It had been surprisingly nice to get the chance to take care of Guillermo for once. Many centuries had passed since he last cleaned and bandaged wound, but it seemed like his hands still remembered how to heal even if he was now so used to killing.

Death did not bother him most nights. But the thought of Guillermo dying dredges up some long-lost fears—fears he could not afford to wrestle with tonight.

“Get cleaned up and then go to bed,” Nandor orders, stalking over to the door. It’s only when he grasps the doorknob that he notices that his fingertips are still stained red with Guillermo’s blood.

He flies out of the bathroom before Guillermo can respond, making his way to a different bathroom on the first floor. There is no reflection in the mirror before him as he watches the blood drip off his fingers, turning the water in the sink basin pink, but he knows the feeling of his features changing, taking on a more bestial appearance. He bites the tip of his tongue in frustration, but the blood in his mouth does not soothe him like he hopes it would.

When Nandor returns to his crypt for the night, jaw aching with the first familiar stirrings of hunger, he presses his hand against his dead heart and tries not to think of how lonely the silence was. It almost makes him wish that he wasn’t so intimately acquainted with Guillermo’s rhythmic heartbeat. If he hadn’t known it, hadn’t grown accustomed to hearing it when he went to coffin, its lullaby drifting through the walls of his crypt from somewhere else in the house, then maybe the silence within the tomb of his own chest wouldn’t make him feel as lonesome as it did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw i do 100% use colin robinson in fanfics as a vehicle for infodumping & i hope that it isn’t too obvious lol


	26. Vampire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early on into his life as Nandor’s familiar, Guillermo catches the vampire taking a nap in his crypt.

.

.

The veil between the living and the dead was as thin and fragile as gossamer when it came to vampires. That was something most movies actually got right. There was an unnatural rhythm to their movements born from the clashing of vampiric reflexes and reflexes that had carried over from their human life. It was like oil on water, Guillermo had thought the first time he caught Nandor taking a nap in the night.

Guillermo had come into the crypt to deliver mail to the vampire, but found Nandor seemingly asleep on the chaise lounge instead, his long mane of dark hair trailing off the satin pillow and curling towards the ground. The flickering candlelight made the vampire look more alive, more human than he did under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights. He knew that vampires were sensitive to both light and sound, which was one reason why they preferred candles to other forms of artificial light. The crackling of a flame was both familiar and relaxing to them.

As quietly as he could, Guillermo laid the stack of letters over the vampire’s coffin where he was sure to see them when he woke up. Having only been Nandor’s familiar for around a few months at this point, Guillermo still felt a bit uneasy when alone with Nandor, always unsure as to what outlandish request the vampire would ask of him now, but he couldn’t say that he was genuinely afraid of him. He knows he should be afraid—Nandor is a vampire, after all, and had remarked early on that Guillermo had a very tempting scent—but the rational, survival-instinct part of his brain had long since packed up the moment he begged to be the vampire’s familiar.

In short, fear, while something he still experienced on a daily basis living in a house full of vampires, was not how he would describe his feelings towards Nandor. Infatuation, however, would be much closer to the truth. He had quickly shrugged off most of his idolization of the vampire when he realized how clueless Nandor was about most things regarding the modern world, but that didn’t mean that he found the man any less attractive.

_Do vampires get cold?_ he wondered to himself, noting the crackling fire in the hearth. There were animal furs draped over the back of one of the armchairs and he shrugged, picking up the longest of the furs. There was probably no harm in trying to do something nice for Nandor.

Quietly, Guillermo approached the vampire, his looming shadow bisecting Nandor’s still sleeping form. Nandor was asleep in his usual coffin pose, back pressed to the sofa, arms folded over his chest. It would almost be funny, if it weren’t for how much he looked like a corpse. The candlelight helped bring warmth to his otherwise ashen complexion, but it could not hide the fact that the vampire’s chest was not rising or falling. His lips were pulled tightly into a tight line, obscuring his fangs and only adding to his unnatural supine form.

Guillermo suppressed a shudder as he draped the fur over Nandor. He lingered over Nandor as he adjusted the fur, making sure it covered the vampire up to his chest. From here, it was almost uncanny how much Nandor did not look like a human when he slept. It was more like looking at a wax figure, something that was too still and too cold to be human. The briefest twinge of uneasiness echoed in Guillermo’s mind as he stared down at the sleeping man. He knew that if he were to press his hand over Nandor’s heart, he would be met with the tomb-like silence of his chest. It was probably the first time that Guillermo fully understood what a vampire was—they weren’t just people with fangs and a nutritional requirement of fresh blood. They were _undead_ , which meant they were neither dead nor alive, like ghosts walking in flesh-and-bone bodies.

The only warning Guillermo got was the barest twitch of Nandor’s eyelids before a pale hand caught his wrist, grip firm but not painfully so. The vampire licks his lips, nostrils flaring, before his eyes open in surprise. Black sclera and gold irises flash for the briefest moment before Nandor’s eyes return to their familiar earthy brown.

“Guillermo?” he questions, still holding the human’s wrist. “What are you doing in my crypt? I thought I told you to do those errands.”

“I-I did,” Guillermo stammers, somewhat embarrassed from having been caught lurking in Nandor’s room. “You’ve been asleep for awhile, Master. I came in to give you your mail but you looked…”

“Like I was dead?” Nandor replied knowingly, gaze softening. “We vampires are very similar to corpses when we slumber. That is why most of us prefer coffins. It keeps nosy humans from discovering us.”

“I’m s-sorry—“

Nandor idly rubs his thumb over Guillermo’s wrist, successfully short-circuiting the human’s brain. Whatever ramble of an apology he was about to make is cut off by the gentle action.

“I was only teasing,” Nandor says, pressing his thumb lightly to Guillermo’s pulse point. He regards the human with an air of rumination. “You are still so skittish, Guillermo. I thought I told you that I don’t eat my familiars. That would defeat the purpose of having a familiar to begin with.”

Guillermo has to bite his tongue to keep from admitting that his quickening heart rate wasn’t exactly due to fear—there was only so many romantic vampire fiction novels you could read before you ended up with an almost Pavlovian response to the sight of fangs.

“I know. I was just surprised.”

Nandor finally lets go of his familiar’s wrist, hands returning to his side. He raises a brow, lips curling upwards in a grimace to reveal his fangs. “Well, now that you’ve dropped off the letters, you can go. I would like to return to my nap. _Alone_.”

The sudden harshness in tone gives Guillermo a bit of emotional whiplash, but he’s getting used to Nandor’s moods. Whenever the vampire showed even an iota of kindness to Guillermo he usually balanced it with a snappy remark or order.

Obediently, Guillermo leaves, shutting the door softly behind him. Being a vampire’s familiar wasn’t for everyone—but it fit him well enough, he supposed. Before he can leave, however, the door clicks open behind him.

Nandor regards him with an unreadable emotion. “I forgot to mention that you are permitted to drape the furs over me whenever you see that I am napping.”

The door swings closed again and Guillermo sighs. That was as close to a thank you as he thought he would get. Not that it deterred him in any way. He found that he did genuinely enjoy doting on the vampire, in being the person Nandor came to for advice or comfort, even if he would vehemently deny it later. It made him feel as if the vampire did care about him and his opinion already despite still being a fairly new familiar. 


	27. Fangs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo tries out a pair of custom fangs.

.

.

Guillermo fiddles with the fangs in his mouth, pressing his index finger hesitantly to the sharp points. No movement. He sighed in relief. Looks like his fangs were finally in place.

It had been a long time—decades, really—since Guillermo had bothered to dress up for Halloween and even though it was still a few days away, he had wanted to be prepared this year. He had even thought of asking to borrow one of Nandor’s capes, but then remembered of their rather large height difference. Even if the vampire surprisingly agreed to part with one of his many capes, it would trail behind Guillermo, which was dangerous in a house prone to near-death mishaps and rusted nails.

He had only meant to wear them for a little while—like an inside joke between himself and the boy he once was, the boy that had clung to the mystery and beauty of vampires like a life-vest in the tumultuous waves of his youth—but before he knows it, it’s nightfall and the fangs were still sitting demurely in his mouth.

He isn’t a familiar anymore, but there were aspects of his previous routine that he still follows. Guillermo shuffles into Nandor’s crypt at dusk, closing the door softly behind him.

Nandor stirs awake with a yawn—an unnecessary, drawn-out yawn that served only to let Guillermo know that the vampire had likely suffered a bought of insomnia during the day.

“Would you like me to come back later?”

At his words, the coffin violently bursts open. Apparently, the answer to Guillermo’s question was a resounding no.

 _“Mierda!”_ Guillermo yells, clutching at his chest. He is quick to return the stake to his back pocket.

If Nandor noticed the stake, he does not mention it. Instead, his gaze is fixed decidedly at Guillermo’s face as he rises from his coffin without aid. As soon as his boots touch the floor, he stalks towards the human.

Guillermo remains frozen in place, back pressed to the door. What he doesn’t expect is for the man to cup his face, brows furrowed in obvious confusion.

“Guillermo? Open your mouth again.”

When Guillermo’s lips remain tightly pressed together, Nandor sighs. “Yeesh. Fine. Can you please open your mouth?”

Hesitantly, he obeys, nearly clamping his mouth shut in surprise when Nandor hooks his thumb under the edge of Guillermo’s upper lip to get a better look at his right fang.

“These are very realistic fangs. They suit you,” he says, pulling away.

Guillermo feels his cheeks warm at the compliment. “T-thank you.”

“Are you going to be a vampire this year for Hallow’s Eve?”

Guillermo nods.

“Good. You know how Nadja gets about Hallow’s Eve. You haven’t dressed up in years and I am tired of her complaining to me about it. She thinks that is why none of the human children come around to our house.”

“I think that has more to do with Laszlo’s topiaries. No normal parent would let their kid anywhere near our house.”

Nandor hums, pressing a finger to his chin in thought. “Yes, you are probably right.”

They share a knowing, secret smile. Reluctantly, Guillermo steps away to begin lighting all the candles in the crypt.

“That is good practice,” Nandor admits, feigning aloofness by burrowing his nose in a book. He moves to sit in one of the armchairs, crossing his legs. “Fangs are cool, but they are something all vampires must get used to. Not that I had any problems. I definitely did not bite myself or have a lisp in the beginning.”

That really wasn’t something Guillermo had thought about—how strange it would be to suddenly have a pair of sharp, deadly teeth in your mouth. He gingerly bites his lip and is surprised to find that the fake fangs are still sharp enough to elicit a mild stab of pain. Guillermo tries not to dwell on the budding realization that Nandor has once again hinted at fulfilling his promise—of turning Guillermo, someday.

Perhaps it was someday soon, he thought, if Nandor was willingly bringing it up on his own accord. Not wanting to ruin the moment, Guillermo continues to light the candles, smiling softly to himself.

In the dim glow of the candlelight, his fangs look so real that Nandor has to remind himself that Guillermo is still human and that the heartbeat he hears crooning in the silence of his crypt belongs to his ex-familiar. Nandor always had a sneaking suspicion that Guillermo would find his footing easily as a vampire; he had been living in a house full of vampires for over a decade now, after all. And Nandor planned to be beside him at every step, from his first sip of human blood to the day where memories of his human life felt more like a distant, passing dream.

Not yet, the vampire thinks, closing his eyes, letting the faint odor of smoke from the candles mingle with the tempting scent of Guillermo’s blood. He wasn’t quite ready to lose the human parts of Guillermo, the parts that had enthralled him from the start. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i’m hannah & i just wore fake fangs for the first time… & like, i get it™ they are an instant mood-booster lol


	28. Regular Human Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief glimpse into Laszlo's life as a human.

.

.

This time, Guillermo merely watches as Laszlo makes the drinks behind the makeshift bar. The memory of his last drunken escapade was still too fresh in his mind to even think of taking one of the drinks that the vampire offered him. He was content to scroll through his phone, chatting amicably with Laszlo in a way that he never could have done as a familiar.

It was funny though, how the act of bartending softened Laszlo. With something occupying his hands, the vampire was apparently adrift in his own mind, remarking here and there on events of his sordid past. He was more apt to speak honestly, to give the bare bones of a story rather than embellish it to impress the human sitting in the stool.

Guillermo listened attentively as he took a sip of a non-alcoholic Shirley Temple. Laszlo had always been a good storyteller.

Laszlo stared pensively into the glass, motions stilling. “When I was a human, I was a people-pleaser. I did everything my family wanted of me—and still, it wasn’t enough. I was still too different. Still too much of a loner. And entirely miserable with myself and my lot in life. I thought I was going to die having never truly lived, but then Nadja swooped into my life at the last moment.

“As a vampire, I learned to stop giving a shit about what other people thought. I lived for myself. No one was going to take my happiness away from me again.”

Guillermo replayed Laszlo’s mini-confession on repeat in his mind for hours afterwards. Somehow, he felt like he was one fragile step closer to understanding the vampire. He wondered if he too would be able to shrug off some of his own emotional baggage—even if he never became a vampire. He hoped so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was so short but i really ran outta steam for this one ;v;


	29. Jahan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nandor character study focusing on his life as a human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> experimented w/ 2nd person pov... idk if it worked how i wanted it to, but it was definitely fun to write~

.

.

It goes like this:

You are born, you grow up, you die. That has been the fate of all humans—why should you be any different? Death is inevitable. And if Death is inevitable, why spend your life trying to outrun it?

(It’s Death that you court for the majority of your human life though you are not consciously aware of it. As a vampire, Death is your bride and groom, your steadfast lover—it will never stop wanting you until you are blood-starved ash in a box. Over seven hundred years and you are still dancing the same waltz with Death, the music having long since quieted. You are tired of it. You think of letting Death brush its lips against yours. Not today, but soon.)

When the battlefield calls for your blood at the cusp of adolescence, you answer its call. War thrums through your veins like it has always had a home in your body. Maybe it has. Bloodshed comes easy to you. Fighting comes easy to you.

(Missing your family comes easy to you.)

You are young and ambitious and you think that the world owes you something—so you take it by force. The stars align, the moon eclipses the sun, and by the time you are able to grow a beard, you are already accustomed to killing. And you’re so good at it that even your superiors take notice of how much blood has stained your sword.

(Centuries later, you will find that the sword still bleeds. Blood will easily rust steel; you’ve known this since you were barely old enough to lift a wooden sword from the ground. But no matter how much care you put into your weapons they all bleed at first.)

They end up calling you Relentless and you take it as a compliment. It is better than what you were called as a child—foolhardy, reckless, naive, stubborn—and so you wear the moniker with pride.

Relentless. You never gave up. Even past the point of sanity. No one could keep you down. The glint of a sword at your throat only spurred you further—you were relentless and that meant you would not cower at the sight of your own bloodied reflection in a curved blade. While others might slip into letting their emotions control their actions, give in to the familiar specters of fear and anger on the battlefield, you grew calm when facing certain death.

In your mind, there were only two options: either you would die or your opponent would. And you were not ready to die. You thought you might never be ready to die. This was how you turned the tide of every battle, how you climbed the ranks from soldier to warlord to leader of an entire empire: you fought harder and longer and smarter than any of your foes.

All the while, you had your horse, Jahan. Perhaps the only creature that could ever truly love you—not the warlord you crafted yourself to be, not the lonely boy that made friends with the farmer’s livestock, not the tactician who poured over maps and planned sieges with an iron fist. Jahan did not care about your wealth or your accolades or the gentler parts of you that were killed the moment your boots hit the battlefield for the first time.

He was a simple creature. He liked to eat nuts and berries out of your hand and sometimes, if you were feeling particularly kind, you even fed him from your mouth. He was there for you when you were sad, when the sharp realization of all your heinous deeds threatened to swallow you whole. You could calm your trembling hands by brushing his mane and confessing each and every horrible thing you did knowing Jahan would not and could not share your secrets.

(He was everything to you—your entire universe could be found in the kind, almond-shaped eyes of your horse.)

At least I have Jahan, you think, even as rations slowly deplete and your men are left shivering in the cold dark of the mountains. You are lost and stranded in enemy territory, but you are not afraid—at least not yet.

It is only when some of your men die from starvation that you come to the grave realization of what must be done. Not that it makes it any easier. Your tears blind you but you’re thankful for them as your blade meets Jahan’s heart with deadly accuracy. Your horse dies swift and painlessly, but you ache for centuries to come.

The sacrifice, in the end, amounts to nothing. Your men still die off slowly one by one. You stoop so low as to eat the dirt from the ground and chew the leaves off a cypress tree. Hunger gnaws at your bones. You grow so weak and delirious from malnutrition that all you wish for is death. But you do not die. You think to try building a fire so that you might jump into it, but you don’t have the strength to even kindle a minuscule flame.

(Your dark power as a vampire, that of pyrokinesis, is no doubt entwined with your last, frantic pleas for mercy.)

When the stranger comes slinking into the ruins of your encampment, you almost sob in relief. Finally, you think. Finally, you will be reunited with Jahan. When the _monster_ clamps its mouth over your neck, you welcome the pain with open arms. You do not expect it to force its own bitter blood down your throat. You struggle, gasping for air between droughts of crimson, and feel your body grow heavy. Eventually, you lose consciousness, waking sometime later to the chill of moonlight and the buzz of blowflies. Your men are still dead and rotting around you.

This is a burial site and even under the haze of confusion at being neither dead nor alive, you know that you cannot linger here. You walk and walk until you find a nearby settlement and steal a horse that is not Jahan, but reminds you of him.

Somehow, despite having been lost before, you find yourself steering the horse home to Al Quolanudar. The sun hurts your eyes and there is smoke billowing off your skin, the scent of brimstone heavy in the air, but all you can do is gallop forward. The compass of your slow-beating heart guides you to the familiar city gates of Al Quolanudar with supernatural accuracy. 

You come home but it is not a traditional homecoming. Everyone looks at you as if you are a ghost. When the first unlucky servant gets too close, their sweet-smelling blood calling out to you, there is no thought behind your actions. You simply drink. Your heart stops the moment the corpse hits the polished floor.

You allow yourself to be driven out of your homeland, nothing but a bag of soil to remember your country by. The trauma of being an exile remains no matter what land you call home, remains even after you find out that your homeland no longer exists. That is the price of immortality, you reason—you remain, unchanged, while all that you love crumbles to dust no matter how tightly you hold onto it.

(Perhaps that is why you are so afraid of loving anything or anyone. You know it can only end in heartbreak.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway, i am feeling emotions™ tonight as u can clearly see... like sometimes i think abt how out of all the vampires, nandor is the only one who did not really benefit from being turned as he was actually enjoying his human life & yeah,,, it just makes me wanna scream into the abyss


	30. Theatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of the theatre massacre, Nandor reflects on his feelings towards Guillermo.

.

.

With only Nandor left in the stage’s spotlight, the other vampires having long since fled back to the safety of the Staten Island house, something inside Guillermo snaps.

He doesn’t know what he means to do when he shoves the vampire to the ground, fingers clenched in the thick fabric of the red cape. All he knows is that he needs to touch Nandor, to remind himself of what it felt like to hold a vampire close and not plunge a stake through its undead heart. To his surprise, Nandor only lets out a pained hiss when the back of his head meets the wooden floorboards, allowing Guillermo to clamber over him without the barest hint of struggle.

“ _I fucking hate you!”_ Guillermo says, though the words feel wrong in his mouth. He was frustrated and angry and he wanted Nandor to know that he had spent the better part of a year trying to keep him and his other housemates from certain death despite how much they took his presence for granted. But hate? He could never truly hate Nandor.

Whenever he tried to hate Nandor before—because it would be so much easier and healthier for him if he could hate the vampire—he would find his ire extinguished almost immediately. It was like trying to grasp at smoke; being at Nandor’s side for over a decade had made him uniquely attuned to the vampire’s psyche, to the natural ebbs and flow of their relationship.

He understood Nandor well enough that he could tell that behind the haughty façade there was a lonely man desperate to connect with others, but terrified of the ramifications of growing attached to things that were fleeting. What could you grow to love if you yourself were deathless? Love was entwined with death for vampires—it was the line they walked, the crevice between living and dying that allowed them to remain when everything else crumbled away.

“I should kill you,” Guillermo says, because it’s true. Eleven thankless years of servitude, eleven years of being strung along as a vampire’s familiar when Nandor had no real concrete plans of turning him… it’s a miracle Guillermo hadn’t stumbled into his vampire hunting ancestry sooner, really. There had been numerous chances before this, before he had pinned Nandor to the floor, and Guillermo had always stopped himself, walked away before the desire to throw open the curtains to let the sunlight spill through the crypt overwhelmed him.

But Guillermo was tired of fighting a losing battle. He was tired of being another pawn in the vampire’s long game of naïve, starry-eyed familiars. It would end one way or another tonight—that much he was sure of.

**

Nandor looks at the vampire hunter poised above him. In many ways, Guillermo was still the same Guillermo he had first met over a decade ago. Even with the bloodstained trench coat, even with the array of vampire killing weapons strapped to his body, the soft parts of Guillermo still remained.

He was wearing a dark blue sweater, the geometric patterns made in darkening shades of navy. His glasses sat perched on his nose, framing his face in a way that still made him look a few years younger than he actually was. Nandor could even spot a hint of the same wrist-watch Guillermo had worn from the start of his time as a familiar—the clock had long since stopped, the batteries inside dead, but Guillermo still wore it, unable to break the habit.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Guillermo says, voice unnaturally cold.

Nandor gives a slow, tired grin. “It would not matter. I have been in many battles—I know when I am outmatched.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be Nandor the _fucking_ Relentless?” Guillermo asks, flexing the fingers around the stake in his right hand. “How can you give up now?”

“I’m not giving up. I’m giving you a gift.”

Confusion mars the vampire hunter’s features. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, _vampire killer_ ,” Nandor replies, emphasizing the title. “That I am letting you kill me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Revenge? I had not treated you well as my familiar. You suffered a lot because of me. It is only fair that you would want to kill me yourself.”

Guillermo is silent.

“It’s nice,” Nandor murmurs, eyes closing. “Being killed by someone you trust.” 

He does not want to see Guillermo’s face as he drives the stake through his heart. Somehow, he thinks that would hurt more—the possible look of delight in the human’s eyes compared to the brief flare of pain as wood pierced the vulnerable flesh below his sternum.

“Do you really think,” Guillermo begins with a huff of tired laughter, stake rolling harmlessly from his bloodstained hand and across the theatre stage. “That I’d go through all the effort of saving you just to kill you after all that shit? Nandor, you’re such an idiot.”

At his words, the vampire's eyes snap open, lips curling into a sharp sneer. “I’m no idiot! That’s very uncalled for, Guill—“

Nandor nearly bites his tongue as Guillermo collapses against him, arms looping around his shoulders. The scent of dead blood and ash made him want to instinctively curl away, but the warmth and familiar sound of the human’s heartbeat settles his anxieties almost immediately. Nandor slowly brings his arms up, hands resting loosely against Guillermo’s hips, returning the embrace with a sigh.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Guillermo admits, sniffling against the vampire’s shoulder. “I was really scared I wasn’t going to make it to you guys in time.”

“Well, I was really scared that one of those vampires was going to hurt you,” Nandor replies, voice wavering. He always felt uncomfortable discussing his emotions; it was the one part of himself that he truly felt he had little control over. All his rules and protocols fell away in the face of overwhelming sentiment. And here Guillermo was, completely unaware of just how tightly he had him wrapped around his finger.

Faintly, Nandor was aware that he was grasping onto Guillermo a bit tighter than what was likely comfortable for a human. He let his muscles relax, unclenched his jaw, felt the bite of hunger wane at the sight of Guillermo’s peaceable smile, at the sight of ruddy cheeks covered in dried blood now intermingled with tears. Gone was the visage of an unreadable vampire hunter, replaced by the same kind brown eyes that had greeted him every night for the last decade or so.

They were both a mess physically and emotionally. The night’s events were finally catching up to them. So much so that it was almost dawn. Nandor could feel it, the pinprick at the base of his spine, the silent warning bells ringing in the back of his mind.

Guillermo too must have realized how close to morning it was as he was back on his feet barely a moment later, one hand outstretched to help Nandor. The vampire rose to his feet with Guillermo’s help, holding onto his hand longer than what was strictly necessary. He hoped the human would think it was merely because he needed a few moments to gather his bearings due to the harsh glare of the stage lights.

Together, they walked out of the theatre and into the early hours of the morning. Nandor wasn’t sure what would happen next—if the Council would launch an immediate counterattack, if friends or familiars of the vampires that Guillermo killed would inevitably come after them, if they were now cursed to spend their lives running from those that wished to kill them—but he knew he would be able to suffer any kind of injustice so long as Guillermo was at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nandor: [would arguably let guillermo kill him]
> 
> also nandor: hey!! you can't call me an idiot--that's mean!! :(((
> 
> anyway,,, we're nearing the end, folks! thanks so much for sticking w/ me this long & i hope to make the last chapter extra special ;3c


	31. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been roughly five years since Nandor and Guillermo became a couple. Nandor has something special planned to commemorate Halloween night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm a day late, but in my defense, this turned into a much longer chapter than i had planned. everyone gets a little time to shine here, so while it is a guillermo/nandor-centric chapter at the end of the day, i tried to give the other staten island vamps their time to shine :) 
> 
> happy belated halloween <333

_I wanna live forever_  
_Forever in your heart_  
_And we'll always be together_  
_From the end to the start_

_No, I don't want to be afraid, afraid to die, (die, die)_  
_I just wanna be able to say that I have lived my (life, life)_  
_Oh, all these things that humans do_  
_To leave behind a little proof_  
**_But the only thing that doesn’t die is love, love, love, love, love_ **

- _Immortal,_ Marina and the Diamonds

.

.

**_October 31 st, 2025 _ **

Nandor shared a conspiratorial grin with the cameras. “I am planning something very special for Guillermo. But it is supposed to be a secret, so I better not see any of you talking to him, understand?”

One of the cameramen nodded, inadvertently causing the camera on his shoulder to make the same nodding motion.

“Great!” Nandor grinned, flashing his fangs. “Let the planning commence!”

**

Later, the cameras spot Nandor in the study hunched over a long piece of parchment. The nib of his quill was audible against the paper as he scribbled along, brows furrowed in concentration. The cameras panned in, trying to focus on whatever Nandor was writing.

At the creak of the floorboards just outside the room, Nandor turned his head and hissed. The door slammed shut in front of the documentary crew and, not even a second later, they heard the lock in the door engage.

Nandor’s muffled voice echoes through the wooden door. “Do not interrupt me while I am doing my dark preparations!”

**

“Nandor is definitely planning something,” Guillermo deadpans to the cameras.

The camera pans out to show their surroundings. They are situated in the kitchen—one of the few places that the vampires were unlikely to venture to in the house—as Guillermo turns back to his baking project. Little bat-shaped brownies covered in icing adorned the baking tray.

“Do you guys want some?”

Five or so different hands snatch up the brownies, a chorus of thanks echoing through the kitchen. One of the benefits of doing a documentary piece like this was that the crew was now more than comfortable with Guillermo and the vampires. No one had died besides the sound recordist in the first year and despite how dangerous the work could have been, the humans had otherwise been more or less protected. 

Over the years, the documentary crew had learned a lot more about Guillermo. His change from familiar to vampire hunter had been an unexpected and unique angle to explore—to the point that he was practically the focal point of the documentary nowadays compared to the actual vampires in the house. They had spent so much time following him around that they all felt rather attached to Guillermo—almost as if they were friends with him.

It was hard not to grow attached. Everyone loves an underdog story, after all... even if this was one of the most unconventional underdog stories to ever be caught on film. The documentary crew had spent the last six years or so at the Staten Island house trailing its strange, unusual inhabitants, and eventually, when the documentary was officially done and the cameras could finally be put away, they knew they could never go back to their normal human lives. But that was okay with them—it was a small sacrifice to pay in comparison to what they’d seen, learned, and experienced.

Guillermo began placing the leftover treats into a Tupperware container, glancing over his shoulder with a soft smile.

“My Amá is actually coming over to the house for the first time to have dinner. So I thought I’d prepare a dessert or two—she has a real sweet tooth. Between these and the _pan dulce_ I made for _Día de los Muertos_ , I think she’ll be happy.”

There was a pause.

“Am I worried about her coming to the house? Safety-wise, no. Everyone pretty much knows her and loves her at this point. They definitely wouldn’t hurt her on purpose. I am worried though what Nandor might do. He has a pretty bad track record when it comes to older women.” A blush blooms over his cheeks. “Not like that—I mean scaring her to death like he did to his descendant, Madeline. I’m well aware of Nandor’s… tastes when it comes to MILFs. Or DILFs.”

Another question is posed.

“What does she think of my relationship with Nandor?” Guillermo chuckles. “Well, to begin with, she thinks I’m in a relationship with a vampire LARPer. And that I live in a house with an entire group of vampire LARPers… which is, admittedly, a bit weird. But she’s gotten over it, for the most part. She knows how much I loved vampires growing up so I don’t think it surprised her all that much. Really, I think she’s just happy that I’m happy.”

Guillermo finishes putting the brownies away, storing them in the well-stocked pantry. They had come a long way from when the only snacks in the house were whatever he baked himself or a bucket of ice chips.

He turns to the cameras again. “Well, I better go check on Nandor. Hopefully whatever he’s planning doesn’t end with a body count.”

**

Colin Robinson sat primly in the armchair dressed in his usual beige office-wear. His grin was actually more joyful than any of the camera crew thought was possible for the energy vampire. He drummed his fingers on the armchair in a quick-paced rhythm, likely doing so out of genuine excitement for the night rather than his usual attempt at draining energy.

“I’m just so G-damn excited!” Colin begins, eyes flashing blue for a brief moment. He adjusted his spectacles before continuing. “Halloween, as I’m sure you know by now, is my favorite holiday. I personally love dressing up as the truly horrifying creatures that roam capitalist America. Y’know… like CEO’s with Bluetooth wireless headsets, social media influencers, politicians, motivational speakers, auditors, safety inspectors, etcetera.”

Colin pauses.

“Oh, this year? I’m dressed as a tax collector. I mean what else is more terrifying than death or taxes?”

Frankly, no one could tell that the energy vampire was dressed any different than usual.

“Well, I’m gonna head on out now,” he said cheerily, rising from his seat and giving the cameras a wave. “If you see any people passed out in the front yard could you do me a favor and cover them up with a tarp or something? They won’t be dead or anything, but I don’t want Nandor yelling at me for drawing attention to the house again. Laszlo had to hypnotize Shaun last year and he almost gave him the brain scramblies for the second time. Guess human brains get weaker with age or something.”

**

Nadja and Lilith were seated in the library, a collection of occult items including an Ouija board spread out on the coffee table. Laszlo was seated in an armchair across from them, face twisted in obvious displeasure.

Laszlo nods to the cameras, waggling a finger at the women. “Ever since these two _reconnected_ —and yes, I do mean in a sexual manner—it’s been an absolute nightmare for me. As you likely recall, I am a man of science. Balancing humors, stuffing herbs into plague masks, using leeches to suck out the poison from your body, now those are real medical practices. I don’t have the time to care about bloody pendulums and moon phases and crystals. It’s all bullshit!”

He looks over at Nadja. “Which I say with no offense, my darling. You can do all the occult activities that your dead heart desires—but I will have no part in them.”

Nadja rolls her eyes, pausing from her readings. The ancient tome was a gift from Lilith—it was a bestiary of sorts, though instead of mythological animals, it was a book detailing numerous supernatural creatures with surprising accuracy. Lilith, meanwhile, was resting her head on Nadja’s shoulder, only half paying attention to whatever Laszlo was saying as she played absentmindedly with Nadja's hair. 

“Laszlo, I’ve told you already that you are free to leave and enjoy the Halloween festivities however you wish.”

“Well, that may be true, but—“

“Just admit it: you don’t want to be stuck in a room alone with Nandor and Guillermo,” Nadja interrupts, eliciting a giggle from Lilith. “I mean they are so in love that I can practically smell it wafting from Guillermo. It really ruins the appetite.”

“Yeah. That about sums it up,” Laszlo admits, wrinkling his nose. “I’m happy for Nandor, truly, but it’s such a mood killer to see your friend snogging a vampire hunter when you’re just trying to enjoy draining the life out of some hapless human victim. I’ve barely had a decent meal in literal _years_ because of those two.”

Nadja nods sympathetically. “That is why I prefer eating on-the-go. Instead of enticing a yummy scrummy human back to our home like I used to do, I just eat them wherever I find them. Yes, this means I don’t normally get to savor my meals, but at least I get to eat them.”

**

The dinner goes better than anyone—meaning Nandor, Guillermo, and the five or so documentary crew members present in the corner of the dining room—could have expected.

Conversation flows easily around the table. Silvia de la Cruz listens attentively to Guillermo and Nandor, her smile warming even the vampire’s dead heart. And despite the oddities of the house and its inhabitants, Silvia seemed relatively unfazed. 

When she excitedly reveals that it was Nandor who had set up the dinner, Guillermo shoots a surprised glance at the vampire.

“I asked Colin Robinson to help me compose an electronic mail detailing the plans for dinner and I even remembered to give our address at the end of the correspondence,” Nandor explains rather smugly, beaming as if he had just finished a long campaign rather than doing something as simple as sending an email.

“I appreciate that you did that, Nandor, but… why?” Guillermo asks.

“Well, it has been some time since your mother has seen you,” Nandor begins, hesitant. “I thought it would be nice for her to come visit us for once instead of crowding her little home.”

Truthfully, Nandor was aware that if his plans went as he envisioned, this would be the last time Guillermo would see his mother as a human.

The rest of the dinner passes in amicable chatter. Stories are told, laughter rings out through the dining room, and there is enough food to go around that even the documentary crew gets to enjoy a meal. Nandor nurses his ‘ _wine’_ carefully, cognizant of the fact that even a single stray drop could likely ruin the illusion—and he really wasn’t in the mood to try hypnotizing Guillermo’s mother to forget about him drinking blood. 

Eventually, Silvia rises from the table and places a kiss to Guillermo’s cheek, running a hand softly through his curls. “I have to go, but this has been a wonderful night. I love you, Guillermo.”

“Love you too, Amá.”

“I will escort you to the door, Mrs. de la Cruz,” Nandor says, holding out his arm. Silvia smiles and nods, allowing herself to be led to the foyer.

When Guillermo rises from the dining table to join them, Silvia shakes her head. “No, ‘Memo,” she says. “I would like to talk to Nandor alone.”

The camera crew does not follow either; it was clear she wanted it to be an entirely private conversation.

When they reach the door, Silvia reaches up to gently cup Nandor’s cheek, expression unreadable. “You really love my ‘Memo, don’t you? I can see it in the way you look at him.”

Nandor stills at the contact. A wave of guilt suddenly crashes over him now as he stands before Guillermo’s mother. This sweet, kindhearted woman believed him to be worthy of her son’s love. But the vampire wasn’t sure, at times, if he deserved Guillermo—not after the years he spent building walls between them to save his own cowardly heart.

“I did not always treat your son as I should have,” Nandor admits, unable to meet the woman’s gaze as he turns away from her touch. “It is one of my biggest regrets. He deserved better—still deserves better, really.”

The resulting silence in the foyer is deafening.

Eventually, Silvia places a hand on Nandor’s shoulder, stepping back into his line of vision. “Then it is a good thing you will have centuries to make it up to him, no?”

Nandor opens his mouth and closes it, unable to even attempt to stammer out a response.

Silvia smiles knowingly. “What? Do you really think I wouldn’t know? You and your friends never eat anything I cook when you come over to the apartment, I saw Nadja throw one of my crucifixes in the trash, and you covered the mirror in the dining room with a curtain.”

“W-well,” Nandor begins, clearly not prepared to lie to Guillermo’s mother about his and his housemates’ true nature. “I have many food allergies. Nadja is just rude. And that mirror had an unseemly crack in it. I was just trying to make the dining room look more presentable.”

All at once, there is a familiar shift in Silvia’s expression. Nandor feels every warning bell in his brain ringing its shrill, hollow tune. Some ancient reflex floods his senses with a visceral, creeping fear. What was once a kind, demure mother was now a nightmare given a corporeal form. He is frozen in place, pinned like a butterfly beneath glass as Silvia steps forward, her heeled boots clacking against the wooden floor. Nandor is reminded of the sound of a stake being driven through a wooden coffin, inch after inch burrowing into the soft flesh of the vampire underneath with every strike of a hammer against the end of the stake.

He is brought back to the present by the feeling of Silvia’s hands enclosing his own. The touch burns like holy water at first, but quickly fades into the regular warmth of a human palm. Silvia is back to being Silvia, the monster now tucked safely away.

“You understand now, don’t you?”

Nandor can only nod dumbly. For once, he has nothing to say. Perhaps the best vampire hunters were the ones you’d least expect.

“Good.” The woman slips her hands away, once again taking on the carefully manicured visage of a regular mother talking to her son’s partner. “For what it’s worth, I trust you. If Guillermo wants to be a vampire despite his ancestry, you’ll make that happen for him. And if he doesn’t… I know you’ll love him for as long as he’s alive.”

Nandor watches her pass the threshold, the Uber Guillermo set up for her already parked and waiting in the street. He watches until the car rolls away, a deep, heavy emotion lingering in his chest like a stone. If he were to ask Guillermo about it, about why he would feel such a way after Silvia gave him her blessing, he’d probably tell Nandor that he was experiencing a bout of melancholy.

All his planning and preparations were coming to fruition, but he was still aware of what had to happen for Guillermo to join him as a vampire. He would kill him with his own teeth—and no matter how impermanent a death it might be, that didn’t change the fact that Nandor would be responsible for stopping Guillermo’s heartbeat.

**

When the cameras finally leave for the night, Guillermo follows Nandor into his crypt. They go through the same nightly routine as they did when Guillermo was a familiar, the actions comforting in their well-worn familiarity. All through the hair brushing and removing of the night’s vestments, however, Nandor is uncharacteristically quiet. It stirs up the feeling of butterflies in his stomach. For a moment, he worries that whatever conversation his Amá had with Nandor hadn’t ended well.

Guillermo nearly startles at the touch of Nandor’s hands against the hem of his sweater.

Though he thinks he hid his surprise well, the vampire still pauses, gaze soft and searching. “Are you alright, Guillermo? I heard your heart do that thing where it beats much too fast for no reason.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I was lost in my thoughts for a second.”

Nandor hums at his words. He reaches for the sweater again and Guillermo lets him tug it over his head easily. The white-button up follows, the brush of the Nandor’s cold fingers against the warm hollow of his throat sending a shiver through him.

The vampire shuffles over to the armoire and pulls out one of Guillermo’s favorite sleeping clothes. Most of Guillermo’s belongings were still in the big blue room, but they had agreed to moving some of his stuff into Nandor’s crypt to aid in their shared nightly routine. Nandor’s actions now mirrored how far they had come in their relationship—it wasn’t just Guillermo putting in the effort to take care of Nandor as the vampire did his best to dote on Guillermo in equal measure.

After helping him redress, Nandor carefully brushed through Guillermo’s curls, eliciting a pleased sigh from the human. He closed his eyes, losing sight of his own reflection in the vanity mirror.

Guillermo felt himself begin to drift off, completely at ease as Nandor continued his ministrations. Soon, the brush was replaced with the vampire’s hands as he ran his fingers softly through Guillermo’s hair, massaging his scalp with the utmost gentleness.

Blearily, he opened his eyes when he felt Nandor’s dark curtain of hair against his shoulder. He couldn’t see the vampire in the mirror, but that didn’t stop him from gasping at what he did see in the reflection.

His eyes were lidded, cheeks reddened, head tilted to the right as an invisible hand tangled in his hair. He felt the barest pull from Nandor's hand and followed suit, exposing more of his throat. There was an answering hiss as Nandor brought an arm around Guillermo’s middle, effectively caging him against his chest. There was a cold puff of air against his skin before he felt Nandor’s lips press lovingly to the thrum of his pulse. The action itself was done with near reverence, the kisses trailing up the column of Guillermo’s neck.

When Nandor made to pull away, Guillermo brought his hand up, eventually finding the vampire’s cheek.

“You didn’t have to stop…”

Nandor sighs, but leans into the touch all the same. “But I did need to stop. I have a surprise for you, Guillermo.”

“A surprise?”

Nandor nods. “Yesss. Just sit here and close your eyes. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Curious, Guillermo obeys. Though he had known that Nandor was planning something for Halloween, he had never quite managed to figure out what it was.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now. Happy Halloween, Guillermo.”

Guillermo opens his eyes to find Nandor standing in front of him, a wine bottle clutched in his hand. He looks absolutely giddy, fangs bared in a wide grin.

“Did you get me wine?”

Nandor shakes his head with a chuckle. “No, it’s not wine. It’s blood. My blood.”

Guillermo almost falls out of the stool when the vampire’s words finally register in his mind.

“Wait—really? You’re serious?”

Nandor pulls him into an answering kiss. Guillermo melts against him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders as the vampire grins into the kiss. When they eventually break apart, Guillermo whines at the loss of contact.

“Now, now, we’ve got all night,” Nandor begins, voice teasing and light. “Perhaps even all of eternity… if that’s what you still want.”

“There’s nothing I want more than that,” Guillermo says, voice faltering. He feels a sudden bout of tears coming on, but he settles for a sniffle instead. There would be time for waterworks later. 

“If you’re ready,” Nandor says, gaze heartbreakingly soft. “I prepared a room in the basement for you, but I can move your coffin into my crypt later, if you'd like. I just wanted to give you some space while you went through the transformation.”

“Is that what all that noise was a few nights ago?” Guillermo asks, recalling all the hissing, grunting, and the sound of something heavy repeatedly hitting the stairs. At the time, he had assumed one of the vampires was having trouble with a victim, but now everything was clicking into place. 

Nandor makes a face. “It was very difficult moving a coffin down there by myself. I didn’t want Nadja or Laszlo’s help because I knew they would end up spilling the peas—“

“Beans,” Guillermo corrects with a smile. At this point, Nandor’s inability to grasp certain modern sayings was actually somewhat endearing.

“Yes, those. Anyway, I wanted it to be special and who knows what those two perverts would have said.” Nandor holds out his hand. “So, are you ready to die now?”

Guillermo laughs, easily lacing his fingers with Nandor’s. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

**

When Nandor’s teeth breach his skin, warm blood spilling into a waiting, hungry, mouth, Guillermo does not think of death. As his heart slows, as his brain clouds with every draught of blood drawn from his arteries, as Nandor tugs him closer to his chest, his iron-like grip tightening further around him, he is not afraid. Even at the cusp of death, he trusted Nandor. The sight of the vampire as he pulls away, blood painting his lips and beard, gold eyes glowing in the dark of the basement, stirs only feelings of love and adoration.

When Nandor gently tips the bottle against his lips, the first few drops of blood soothing the faint burning sensation in the back of his throat, Guillermo finds himself smiling. He had spent so long imagining what it would be like to be turned, scenarios flickering through his mind like a film reel, but never had he imagined it happening while Nandor looked at him with such an open, loving expression.

The coffin Nandor had picked out for him had no right being as comfortable as it was, Guillermo thinks when the vampire carefully places him inside. The plush interior was lined a warm burgundy and the polish was a deep black. Gold latches lined the exterior of the coffin and there was already a feather pillow and blanket draped within.

“You’ll be cold at first,” Nandor explains, tucking the blanket over Guillermo with tenderness. He feels the brief touch of the vampire’s lips against his forehead, but their difference in temperature was nowhere near as pronounced as before. The realization that he is actively _dying_ doesn’t bother him like he assumed it would—if anything, he wished the process would speed up.

This was all he had wanted since he was old enough to understand what a vampire was, after all. The pain of dying was a price he’d gladly pay tenfold if it meant he would get to remain with Nandor for eternity.

When he closes his eyes, he does so knowing that the first thing he would see when he opened them again would be Nandor. That much he was sure of. What happened after, though? Only time would tell.

**

“Well, it’s about bloody time,” Laszlo grumbles, the scent of blood drifting into the room.

Nadja nods in agreement. “Yes, at this rate, I thought Nandor wasn’t going to turn Guillermo until he was geriatric.”

“Nandor does love his MILFs and DILFs,” Laszlo replies wistfully.

Colin Robinson slaps his leg and lets out a hoot, starting the two other vampires in the room. “Hah, so that’s why Nandor asked me to write up a death certificate for Guillermo. I thought it was just a weird blood-drinker fetish thing, but it’s actually pretty above board.”

Nadja and Laszlo exchange grimaces as the energy vampire’s eyes turn an electric blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this chapter worked as an effective bookend for this drabble collection :D i don't think i could have gotten to the end of this challenge w/o all the encouraging feedback & kudos, so thank u so much for keeping me motivated to finish this piece. i'll be responding to comments here &, as usual, if u are looking for someone to ramble to about wwdits, my inbox and/or IMs are always open on my wwdits sideblog on tumblr @nandoor.


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